


Neither Argued Nor Temporized

by Kryptontease



Category: Tenet (2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amnesia, Canon Speculation, Inspired by a Trailer, M/M, No Spoilers, Spies & Secret Agents, Temporary Character Death, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:22:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 25,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25413871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kryptontease/pseuds/Kryptontease
Summary: Red string and supposition could only take the Protagonist so far. If he was going to prevent World War III, he needed actionable intelligence.
Relationships: Neil/The Protagonist (Tenet)
Comments: 39
Kudos: 63
Collections: Rare Male Slash Exchange 2020





	1. Index Card & String

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spock](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spock/gifts).



> For spock for the Rare Male Slash Exchange. As of the writing of this fic, there is no canon to be compliant with. Like you, I am SO HUNGRY for this film. I hope that you will enjoy the rampant canon speculation in this fic! Several characters are unnamed in canon as of the writing period, so I've opted to use a mix of actor names, role titles, and completely made-up names when it becomes relevant to the plot. If you're having a bit of trouble placing names to characters: the Protagonist is John David Washington; Support is Robert Pattinson; the Mentor is Michael Caine; the Instructor is Clémence Poésy; Mikhail Aven is Kenneth Branagh. 
> 
> A quick note about amnesia in the fic: it's an homage to how often Christopher Nolan characters have this strange relationship between memory and time. The cause of characters' amnesia is assumed to be part of what happens when a character dies the first time and is resuscitated.

It was a sweltering spring afternoon in mid-May. He had come back into the office, swiping in through the security kiosk and submitting to the customary full-body scan for unsanctioned weapons, but was held at the entrance while the guards called up for his specific authorization. The Division Administrator had telephoned a provisional approval, even though it was a Sunday, even though it was the _eighth_ Sunday in a row that he’d shucked the disappointing husk of his spartan Berlin apartment and returned to work despite having no mission on the books for another week.

The security personnel buzzed him through, and he pushed open the immense glass doors to the Recovery & Rescue Division. He wound his way through the byzantine labyrinth of empty open-plan desks, down into the subterranean levels of Processing with racks and racks of sealed evidence and all the way through to the lowest sublevel, where his office butted up against the Sarcophagus.

Flat cabinets and cantilevered tables. The cement bunker that they called the Sarcophagus exuded an odd charm, like Frank Lloyd Wright had crash-landed on a Gilded Age bullpen. The Sarcophagus was a remnant of a different, forgotten building that the ultra-modern Service Headquarters had cannibalized. His office made them a matched set: two relics uneasily synced with the rest of time.

He flicked on the lights. The old fluorescent tubes pulsed as they warmed up, casting light across six months of work. What had started as a side project had grown to monstrous proportions: red yarn engulfed his small office, overwhelming all of the furniture. A CRT computer terminal had been pushed off to the side and then eventually abandoned to the string. At the end of each thread lay an index card (titled, dated and geo-located) that represented the sum of his personal knowledge of the chain of events that would precipitate World War III.

Except no one called it World War III. No one other than the Instructor. In Recovery & Rescue, they simply called it _the Future Incident_. 

Hell, the name made a perverse kind of sense.

Recovery & Rescue worked solely in reverse time. No agent who joined the team would ever see the results of their work. To them, the future remained indefinite and theoretical. To join Recovery & Rescue, a prospective agent had to die--and while their actions might change the world, their death was a fixed point on their personal timeline that they could not erase. This fact was drilled into all new trainees; the Instructor, who knew more about time than anyone else at the Service, made them repeat it like a mantra. It was Inviolate Rule Number One.

**Inviolate Rule Number One: Agents cannot move forward beyond their time of death.**

He had died in a train yard, his head crushed against a rail.

He had come to in an ambulance. An oxygen mask had been fitted over his face. He had tried to breathe and couldn’t stop his lungs from burning as they expelled all of the oxygen in them. A Recruiter had steadied him and told him not to fight it, to wait for his lungs to catch up with what his brain already knew. He had laid on that gurney choking, drowning on dry land... until his body intuited the new rhythm. Exhale, inhale. Exhale, inhale.

When he had looked less peaked, the Recruiter had taken his pulse. “Welcome to the afterlife,” the Recruiter had joked.

The pitch was short: _do you want to stop global annihilation?_

“All I have for you is a word,” the Recruiter had said. “Tenet. It’ll open the right doors, and some of the wrong ones.” 

He couldn’t even remember his name, but he felt the _righteousness_ of purpose. He’d accepted on the spot.

In return, the Service had given him an office (cramped), an apartment (adequate), a call-sign (Protagonist), a goal (save the world)--and little else. His briefings were sparse, his Division was tight-lipped, and Recovery & Rescue never called him in to top-level meets. Hell, he’d never even met the Division Administrator, who wouldn’t know him from Adam. 

During the first month, it had frustrated him to no end. But as mission after mission had been completed, he had learned that none of the other agents had the same freedom that he did. Stuck in the bowels of Headquarters, he was free to spend his off-hours however he pleased. In the open floor offices, the agents were regulated by time cards, meetings, and 14-point schedules.

So he’d chalked this one up as a draw. He sacrificed a place in the Division’s inner circle for the freedom to solve problems on his own terms.

In the absence of official meaning, he created his own. 

Card-and-string brainstorming offered him a tangible method of interacting with a world that streamed by him in reverse. Six months’ worth of index cards filled his office thicker than a forest. The nest of string that connected Event B with Cause A increased in density and ferocity with each new mission he completed. Yet gaps in his knowledge stubbornly persisted. Who was trying to precipitate _the Future Incident?_ And why had all his missions in the past six months put no visible dent into the shape of the future?

How would anyone _know_ if the shape of the future changed?

\--That question challenged him, and he shot off about it whenever he could find another willing ear to listen. It was above his pay grade, everyone told him. Perhaps the Division’s inner circle knew, but--he couldn’t count on that. The stakes were too high. Each agent had to act as though they were the only one standing between survival and catastrophe.

Nevertheless, red string and supposition could only take him so far. If he was going to prevent World War III, he needed actionable intelligence.

**  
**

*

**  
**

He stowed the last explosive charge in the Munitions locker, and stripped off his tactical gear. It wasn’t _exactly_ breaking protocol to have them. He had lifted them from the Dresden Recovery op--another solo mission with a violent conclusion and an ambiguous beginning. He had taken the explosives rather than let them be collected by the saboteur (who would have retrieved them, driven them back to their origin, and then begun the laborious task of un-fabricating them). Now they were here, deactivated and dislocated from their original timeline. It was _probably_ against Division policy to remove objects from their natural course. But he’d been given no explicit instruction about how items affected the timestream--and he was getting restless. If the Instructor had the actual thing to study instead of just a field report full of hasty guesses, she might be able to discern the explosives’ maker or their purpose.

_Actionable intelligence_.

He bent over to unfasten his empty ankle holster--

That was when he felt the lightest touch on his shoulder.

His heart leapt into his throat.

His knives were in his boots on the bench behind him, his gun in its holster on top of his tactical vest. He was completely unarmed.

“It’s customary not to sneak up on a man undressing,” he said lightly as he leaned towards his boots.

“ _Granted_. But it’s also customary for you to shoot first and ask questions later, so I’ll take my chances with rudeness.”

The hand withdrew. He rethought his options. (Did he trust himself at this range with a knife? He’d barely had time to practice with them.) Diving for the tactical vest instead, he grabbed his sidearm and spun on his heels.

The room was empty.

A sinking feeling prickled at his throat. He opened the Munitions locker. The explosive charges had vanished.

He reviewed the security tapes. He had been alone when he entered Munitions. He queued the footage up to his entrance, and watched it forward and backward. He entered; he undressed; he spooked; he ran to the security vault; and then back again on a loop.

No one else had entered Munitions. No one touched his shoulder. There was no other man. There were no explosives. 

Inwardly, he took measure of the situation. The voice had been male. British. He wracked his memory for the current deployments bulletin. The Service had an entire field office in Britain; any agent could be visiting the Berlin office, but there hadn’t been any postings about visiting agents in the last three months. And now that the explosives were gone, with no evidence that he had ever taken them from the Recovery op in the first place, he saw the events of the night in a more conspiratorial hue.

The only division that could have known what he was doing, and done something about it, was one that was moving in a direction different than his own. 

_Temporal Affairs_.

He unwound the tape reel from the player, and slipped it out of the vault with him. Back in his office, he wedged the tape reel behind a row of unremarkable-looking books.

The card he wrote for the day was short and to the point.

**2019-May-30. Anomaly encountered. Investigation ongoing.**

**  
**

*

**  
**

Recovery & Rescue was the smallest division of the Service. Agents burned out and resumed forward time almost as quickly as they finished their field training. At six months, he was the third-longest-serving agent in the Berlin office. His status allowed him to enjoy a few luxuries at Headquarters between missions.

An extra account for mission expenses. Trips to the Sarcophagus to speak to the Instructor about non-critical mission objectives. Lingering coffee breaks in the aboveground offices.

It wasn’t curiosity that led him to take these breaks outside of Temporal Affairs. 

No, they simply had the nicest view of Berlin’s green boulevards from the Atrium. So if he took his coffee in the Atrium once a week and _just so happened_ to watch a situation board that echoed his own on Temporal Affairs’ level--

\--that was nothing other than a happy coincidence. 

Cards disappeared from Temporal Affairs’ board as Recovery & Rescue cleared objectives. Temporal Affairs existed in the forward flow of time, so his surveillance mainly constituted watching their intelligence decrease, as lines disappeared off of cards, nodes grew more sparse, and their knowledge grew thinner.

His presence in the Atrium toed the line, but that was as far as he was willing to go without concrete evidence of tampering. Nothing about the explosives turned up on their cards; and maybe it couldn’t. For all he knew, the thief could be safely confined to the future he could no longer access. It was all speculation at this point. He had no evidence but his memory to back him up.

And he refused to break the second inviolate rule of the Service.

**Inviolate Rule Number Two: No communication between divisions.**

He sipped his Blümchenkaffee and watched their operational board through the foot-thick two-way glass that separated Temporal Affairs from Recovery & Rescue, and wondered which department knew more about the future at this point in time.

**  
**

*

**  
**

The knock at his door surprised him. In six months, no one had visited his office. 

To his further surprise, it was the Instructor. She had stepped out of the Sarcophagus for the first time in his memory. She peeked her head in, then did a double-take at the straight-out-of-the-50s glass panel door, complete with his code name in gold-leaf. _PROTAGONIST_. 

It _was_ a bit on the nose, but all of his requests to assign him a new callsign had disappeared, futilely, resigned to the future.

She took in the mid-century modern tanker desk and matching desk set. Everything about his office clashed with the ultra-modern design of the rest of Headquarters, but the Instructor visibly relaxed. 

He patted the dust off of his chair and waved her into the office. The wooden roller chair squeaked as he eased himself into it gingerly. That freed up enough space for the Instructor to move around the cramped office. She touched the strings, read the cards.

“So this is what you do with your free time,” the Instructor said appraisingly. 

Her tone sounded approving. The Instructor was _never_ approving. Her gaze jumped around the room until it lit on a card nearly buried under red string.

**2019-November-18. PROTAGONIST awakens.** The first card he had tacked to his board.

“One month forward, an oil tanker off of Jakarta. Two months forward, four concrete factories in Georgia. Three months forward, the Metropolitan Opera.” She touched the cards as she named them. “These are only your recovery operations. Where is the rest of your division?”

“I couldn’t tell you. Stonewalling other agents is Unofficial Rule Number Four,” he joked. “I can’t get straight answers from the rest of my division.”

“They tell me nothing either,” she commiserated. “In the last six months, I have only had one update. The dance protocol for new agents.”

They shared a look; he’d attended the second session of the dance class. How to time yourself dancing with a partner traveling in a different temporal direction than you, in five different classic ballroom dances. What he’d learned was that Recovery was full of agents with two left feet. 

She studied the web and its multiplying complications, and then put her finger on the thread that led towards the single blank card, tacked somewhere near the bookshelf, that symbolized _the Future Incident_.

“Ahhh, I see now. What you are charting is time. Causes have effects, and then effects have further causes. You can trace them forwards and backwards, and see each of them as they are. A type of thinking similar to the Sator Square that the Service is so fond of.”

“I hadn’t thought about it that way,” he said honestly.

“It is the type of thinking that makes great spies or mediocre historians,” she shot back.

Affection welled up in him; their working relationship was playful and he enjoyed the ease with which she joked with him or rebuked him. He hoped that this meant that they were friends.

“Let me guess--” He didn’t try to suppress his grin. “--you’re going to tell me the world works in a different way.”

She produced a sand timer from her pocket, and set it down on his desk. To his surprise, grains tumbled through the bottleneck. He knew his office interacted with time strangely but he’d never seen that principle demonstrated so directly. He watched the sand in the hourglass dwindle with great interest--but the point the Instructor was making eluded him. 

“It is only a hypothesis.” She inverted the glass and watched the grains fall again. “But lately, I have been thinking time might be malleable, like sand. Remove a few grains and the shape of it is still the same. The results are still the same. The sand flows through the glass, minus a few details, and achieves whatever end it desires.”

“Just a hypothesis, huh.” He swiped the sand timer off of the desk, and studied it up close. “Sounds like you’ve been thinking about this for some time.”

“Off and on,” she said with a calculated diffidence. She nodded at the sand timer in his hands. “Keep it. My cabinets are full of these curiosities.”

He laid the sand timer back on the desk, and drummed his fingers against his watch out of habit. The Instructor had gifted it to him for completing the Recovery & Rescue’s basic training. It was a custom piece of equipment for Service members. The matte black hands ticked backwards on a black field of numbers no matter which direction he traveled in the timestream.

He was drilled to think in seconds. The second before, or the second after. The sequence of actions that make up a complex motion. Everything counting towards the objective, away from the zero-hour. It was a good mindset for a soldier. Simple. Direct. Understandable. It kept him alive and in the moment; and it made him indispensable during a fight... but... 

“Nobody in Recovery seems to get the big picture. If they did, we’d be talking _to_ Temporal, rather than pretending they didn’t exist. How can we be expected to save the entire world if we can’t even cut through the red tape of our own department? But I don’t think I can buy into your hypothesis, either. If we’re just bailing water out of the Titanic, then what we do in Recovery doesn’t matter.”

“Think on it during your next mission,” she replied. “And then tell me what you conclude? My viewpoint is perhaps too circular.” She lingered in the doorway. “And if you encounter any anomalies or...unintended consequences...”

He laughed. “You’ll be the second person to know.” 

He couldn’t believe it; after all of that big-picture wind-up, the Instructor was angling for a _favor_. He sprawled back in his chair and considered his options. Yes, they were friends, he hoped, but did he trust her? Did he trust _anyone_ in the division? Six months was an awfully long time to be carrying the burden of this life by himself. 

He came to a decision; if he encountered any _provable_ anomaly, he would trust her with it. He couldn’t save the world alone. And maybe he was a little tired of trying to.

**  
**

*

  


The Service had remained characteristically silent on his mission in Oslo--the fewer details they gave him about any mission, the better the outcome would be. They simply reminded him of the third inviolate rule and sent him on his way.

**Inviolate Rule Number Three: _Make no alteration to the timeline in non-nexus locations._**

_2019-May-10, Oslo_ was not a nexus, and therefore no change was to be made to the timeline. He was simply to go to the designated location, participate in events as they unfolded, and then piece together an explanation after the action was complete.

The _or else_ had been very strongly implied in his mission briefing. He hadn’t triggered any unintended consequences yet--and as far as anyone else knew, the Munitions Incident had never happened. Why the heavy-handed warning?

What would happen if timeline alterations propagated outside of a designated nexus event?

If events had causes whose downstream effects grew in scale the further forward from a single incident one travelled, quite a lot could happen if he interrupted even one non-nexus event. He briefly thought about the sand timer on his desk as he geared up in the Sarcophagus, with all of its as-good-as-identical grains of sand falling through the choke-point over and over again. The Munitions locker clicked shut. He fitted a blazer over his tactical load-out and checked his lines in a full-body mirror. The bullet-proof vest was barely visible under his suit jacket. Maybe he could pass for a bystander if he needed to abort the mission.

A solo mission meant he had no time to spare on hypotheses until he returned safely with his objective achieved.

A Service helicopter waited for him on the landing pad. He hustled into the co-pilot’s seat, and they rose into the night sky above Berlin, awash in red and blue lights from nightclubs, discos, and 24-hour financial pillars in the heart of the city. They quickly cut across Germany to the North Sea, and touched down on an unmarked yacht which skipped backwards across the waves. The pilot watched for signs of turmoil below. They were catching a free ride from someone who didn’t know the helicopter was there, and they needed to be ready to bolt if the crew sensed something was off. When they neared the Norwegian shore, they took flight again toward the capital. 

The helicopter reached their destination, hovering over a squat Oslo office building with no distinguishing features. He attached a climbing harness and rappelled onto the roof. He drew his pistol and held it lightly at his side, ready to snap up in an instant. As he pried open the roof access panel, he realized that the pilot’s approach had disguised all of the building’s signage. If he was retrieved the same way he entered, he wouldn’t know where he had been or how to get back here.

A true blank slate situation.

He took a deep breath, threw off the climbing gear, and squeezed himself through the choke point.

Movement on the third floor spooked him before he could finish scouting the perimeter. A row of doors, all slightly ajar, offered him cover. He ducked into a records room. The room was trashed. Bullet holes riddled the glass partition. One side of the room was singed from a fire that had been hastily put out.

He tore his blazer off just as a smoldering patch of embers sprang to life. As he began to battle the flames, he at least had the comfort of knowing that he’d succeeded.


	2. The Polaroid

The third floor of the building lit up in a scene of wild excitement. Bullets flung themselves backwards through the barrels of rifles; as muzzle flashes winked out, they crowded their way back from prime firing position down into the rifles’ magazines. The dance repeated. Wall, to gun, to magazine. Vapor curled, then vanished from unfired weapons. A line of bullet holes healed along the glass partition between the guns and a row of pristine file cabinets. The men stumbled back up from the ground one by one. Someone who’d been shot flung himself up from where he’d fallen, then fired, then seemed to think better of it and doubled-timed it out the door.

A bitter smell grew fainter and fainter as accelerant poured itself back into the gas can one of the men had brought.

The fire hadn’t been an accident. His adversaries had thought to cover their other crimes with a convenient burn. It would have worked. The building had been abandoned--for what reason, he couldn’t say--and with fires popping up all over the city, the emergency response system had been overwhelmed. City authorities weren’t looking too closely.

Whatever their plan was, it would not have been inconvenienced by unexpected resistance.

He turned on his heels and caught a bullet with his pistol. The fight was winding up, and he was entering the crucial phase of the encounter. When bodies were flying, as long as his movement matched his opponents well enough, time could grind on with little resistance. It was just as likely he would be shot as he wouldn’t be when multiple shooters were unloading their clips, and the probability space of the encounter flexed and breathed and lay complacently like a shark slumbering in an oxygen-rich cave.

He gritted his teeth in pain, and threw himself into the path of a body flying up behind him. He took the hit on his shoulder. It had been a poorly telegraphed move. His antagonist had meant to crush his skull with the butt of his rifle, but he wove closer, and closer, taunting him into making what had been a fatal mistake. 

Then, the first shot happened. It screamed off the wall, and through the meat of his right shoulder. Bone and tissue reformed across the wound. The pain came to a sudden spike, and then ceased altogether. 

The rest of the men paused, and lowered their rifles. For a moment, he felt bewilderment spark from the group of ten who had entered the room with the intent to burn it. His pistol was still drawn. The barrel shook imperceptibly. The pain was gone, but the memory of it burned in his mind. He wanted to fire at them. He wanted to pick this fight on his terms, not theirs. He’d tagged the first shooter in his mind, and wanted to draw down on him before he could be shot in the shoulder.

But he knew the score.

They hadn’t started anything yet, so he had to respect the cause and let them leave the room in peace. He wasn’t ready to tear apart time and space just to save himself the trouble of having been briefly shot.

The men filed out of the room almost lazily, their weapons at their sides, their conversation unconcerned. They spoke in German, Russian, a little Danish. A multinational crew.

_Mercenaries_ , he thought.

He watched the shock register on each of their faces as they encountered him for the first time, then die away as their eyelines to him broke. The team had entered heavily armed--dressed in face masks and tactical armament to blend in with the Beredskapstroppen. They had anticipated a tactical police response, but they hadn’t expected _him_.

So they hadn’t followed him here, and the fire hadn’t originally been intended to conceal their fight; they must have had some other goal in this room...or in this building.

His eyes flickered over to the row of file cabinets behind the now-undamaged glass. Chances were high that the mercenaries’ goal--and the purpose of his mission--was in those cabinets. However, he doubted that digging into them at random would do any good while the floor was unsecured and crawling with hostile combatants.

He counted the seconds.

Footsteps marked the mercenaries’ retreat across the third floor. The elevator rang; stairwell doors groaned on their hinges. Most of the men had left the floor.

_A disposal team_ , he amended.

Then, a single gunshot followed by a ragged gasp of breath.

A heated conversation ensued. It was too far away to hear anything but the general tone. He pressed his ear to the door, but it didn’t make a difference. At least, he thought, they were speaking in English. Shouting, some threats, a joke that only one person laughed at. Little of it made any sense to him.

During a long silence, he cracked the door.

Two men were facing off at the far end of a deserted open-plan office. One was tied to a chair; the other was standing over him with a pistol. Neither were dressed in tactical gear; it stood to reason that neither of these men had been with the disposal team. The man holding the gun was dark-haired and lightly tanned--maybe Greek or Cypriot--and wore a sporty white blazer with a navy blue and white striped tie, sunglasses (even though night had fallen and the deserted office was only lit by neon signs on the surrounding buildings), and an unfortunate mustache. The man tied to the chair wore a light gray checked coat with a gray-green ruffle of fabric around his neck, a scarf or cravat or ascot. There was a pallor to the restrained man’s skin that sparked a brief fear that he’d lost blood--but no, that was more likely due to an extended time indoors. His hair had been bleached, but not recently, and carelessly swept around his face. 

(Maybe the man had been a prisoner _far longer_ than he’d first suspected, but--)

The body language between the two seemed relaxed enough. Whatever precipitated the gunshot lay in their future, his past. Like the records room, a patina of scattered papers and dust covered the open floor plan; three desks, a lobby sign, and an additional upturned chair were all that remained of its former occupant--Bresson, Ltd. 

The men glanced up. He flattened himself against the wall. The open door didn’t draw their attention and the conversation resumed without distraction.

At last, one of them cried out a name in greeting, and the footsteps died away as their owner exited via the elevator. The man in the chair was still tied up; whoever had brought him here had likely done so far in advance of the events he’d experienced tonight. 

The thought of waiting for that moment to arrive felt like an _itch_.

Time to bend Inviolate Rule Number Three. No sooner than he’d heard the ding, he was tugging off his agency-issued gloves and buttoning them into his tactical vest. He knew he was tiptoeing close to the line and he prepared himself for the consequences--whatever they could be. He nudged his way through the door, weapon drawn.

He swept the room, and approached silently.

The man in the chair didn’t startle at the touch of a hand on his shoulder. He held his breath, waiting for something to happen--some catastrophe that would justify the fervor with which the Instructor had drilled the Inviolate Rules into him. 

The man in the chair sighed, and crumpled forward. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m thrilled you’re here,” he muttered, “but did Retrieval have to take _quite_ so long canvassing the city?”

The man leaned into his touch and didn’t immediately enter respiratory distress. This was good. More than good, _great_. Coasting on emotion, he almost didn’t notice the tiny hiccup in the nomenclature. Almost.

_Retrieval_ , his mind supplied, _is a subdivision of Temporal Affairs._

His fingers slipped on the knot.

“Untie me before they return,” the man urged. “The file we want is in a sealed glass partition. Project code-name TOROS. They’re going to destroy all remaining evidence of it if we don’t stop them.”

“What’s your division,” he asked flatly.

A sheepish pause. “...Would it help if I said I was an independent contractor?”

He worked through the knots as quickly as he could one-handed. The other hand remained where he’d placed it, grounding them both. 

It was a trick that he’d learned when an enemy agent had surprised him at a bathroom sink. As long as his bare hands stayed in physical contact with someone or something, they could operate in _his_ flow of time, or vice versa, like two branches caught together in a gyre. The problem was he never knew _which_ way time was flowing. One direction might surprise him with unanticipated challenges; but if time was flowing in its more usual course--they would be shot and killed within five minutes. 

The elevator pinged. The car had reached the lobby. _Shit_. Maybe less than five minutes.

“Are you okay?” The question came out sharp, as he wiggled the last knot loose. Even if the answer was _no_ , they had no time for triage.

“Well enough for travel. One of those sods hit me in the chest with his rifle. Think I bruised a rib.”

The elevator had started to rise. They were definitely in the wrong gyre: moving forwards towards a future he’d already lived through. “We need to move _now_.”

The man rubbed his wrists. Angry red chafe marks had bitten into his skin. He had been tied up for some time. He started to gripe about his captor’s hospitality--but stopped suddenly when they came face-to-face. 

“ _David._ ” The man inhaled sharply, eyes wide, as a strong emotion flitted across his face.

They had never met. Had they? Doubt shivered into the fitful machinery of his brain.

“I watched you--” The final word faded away on the man’s lips, and he cleared his throat. In a much higher tone, the man continued with a forced lightness: “What do I call you?”

He was _certain_ they’d never met. But the man’s voice was so familiar... surely it was no coincidence that this was the second British agent he had encountered this month. 

It was no time to be unnerved; he packed this emotional tangle into the back of his mind.

“You can call me _Rescue_.”

The hint hit just as he wanted it to, and tension crept into the room with the implication that they both were in breach of Inviolate Rule Number Three. 

“We’re...still using code names. _Cute._ I’m Support. Kindly let go of my shoulder, I’m losing circulation there.”

He ignored Support, and manhandled him out of the chair. They sprinted towards the stairwell as best they could, pausing on the threshold between the office and the stairwell’s landing. Voices echoed up from the floors below them. Support tried to dart forward, but was brought up short by the grip on his shoulder.

“No--there’s a disposal team below us. They’re going to torch the building. The windows.”

Support watched him keenly as he traced his fingers along the ledges.

“These windows aren’t meant to open, how do you expect--”

Ah. That one. A whisper of chilly night air seeped through.

He pressed more firmly on it, and heard the glass scrape against the metal frame. The window hadn’t been seated properly during installation.

“I need to borrow your--” He made a rapid half-circle gesture, and nodded towards Support’s throat.

As quietly as he could, Support said: “Lucky for you, I understand the international sign for _I don’t understand men’s neckwear_.”

He extended his fist, and Support gingerly wrapped it up with his scarf. He expected Support to grouse about the scarf’s cost, or his request for assistance, or the fact that they were practically breathing each other’s exhaled breath--anything. As Support tied the scarf off in a quick knot, they both leaned instinctively into each other’s space and just as quickly leaned away when they realized what they were doing.

What _were_ they doing?

“Stand back,” he cautioned, as he maneuvered them so he stood between the window bank and Support, in case the glass shattered. He whacked the loose pane firmly at its base with his wrapped fist. The pane groaned, and then gave way; it whistled as it sailed through the air and shattered on the pavement below.

“I’ve been tied to a chair all day. I’d prefer to not end it by stepping off,” Support murmured.

The touch was so light, maybe he imagined it. A blink-and-you-miss-it squeeze of his wrist. He suppressed the wild deja-vu that thundered through his veins. _It_ was _him!_ His body sang.

“Three stories. We’ll survive.”

The elevator pinged on the third floor, and out stepped the man in the sporty blazer who’d been here before. _No._ His heart sank. He knew that their coming encounter would end in Support’s death. It had already happened. He’d already watched it happen. This event wasn’t a nexus; he wasn’t supposed to introduce changes here, and yet changes were on their way.

The man in the blazer drew his pistol. He shouted into his cuff, and that was it. The disposal team had been alerted.

The timeline changed around them; the future he’d witnessed was snuffed out in an instant. The man in the blazer opened fire, and there was nowhere to go to but out.

If he timed this right, they could grab the open window ledge to help break their fall. They’d both survive. 

His head swam; the edges of his vision began to white out. Somewhere in the city below them, sirens rumbled to life, drowning them in sound, until there was nothing, nothing, but the oncoming wave of fading light. 

They jumped.

“Hold on,” he screamed.

Everything faded to white.

  


*

  


He blinked against the overwhelming wash of light, and stumbled towards anything solid. He sat down, hard, on a polygonal surface and rode out the collapse of time.

  


*

  


The world faded in slowly. First, the shape of things; then shadow, form, color, texture and smell. He was sat on a bench in dappled sunlight. The world swam into focus. The bench bordered a wide pedestrian walkway, lined with plane trees and black bollards. In one hand he could feel the crinkle of a small paper bag. It was full of birdseed. The grains shifted in the paper bag, but they weighed on him as dearly as if they lay in his palm, waiting to sieve through the narrow funnel that separated the future from the present and the past. His other hand was empty.

He’d lost his grip on Support.

He poured out some of the seed into his hand and scattered it on the paved stone. The bag dropped to the sidewalk and the rest of the seed rolled in all directions.

He watched in utter disbelief. He had resumed forward time.

A great commotion broke out; the spilled seed had been discovered by opportunistic pigeons who darted between his legs and mobbed the walkway. As the birds edged each other out and stood on each other’s backs to get at the precious grain, tourists paused to photograph the tiny frenzy. In the pandemonium, he slipped away. If anyone had seen him fade into existence on the park bench, no one kicked up a fuss as he melted back into the anonymity of the growing crowd.

He was in Hyde Park; that much he knew.

Everything else escaped him. 

Was this dislocation the consequence of violating Inviolate Rule Number Three? How had he wound up in _London,_ of all places?

When he was sure no one from the park was following him, he stopped at a transparent waste bin. He stripped off his tactical vest, rifled through its pockets for its most valuable contents, and then dropped it in. He felt underdressed without it but the quasi-military attire would attract unwanted attention in the casual bustle of daytime London. Underneath the vest, he was wearing a waistcoat and a dress shirt, no tie. They were slightly discolored; but it was a warm day for London, and other office workers on break would be working up a light sweat as they took constitutionals around the park. 

He waved at a family who had stopped at a nearby chestnut tree to pull out a park map--tourists no doubt--who then smiled at him and waved back. The father cracked a joke, and his daughter laughed. _Cause and effect in their proper order,_ he thought.

It was such a vibrant feeling, being seen. After months of skulking in shadowy margins, racking up new index cards, he felt the monochrome world bloom into color.

He straightened his cuffs as a tendril of disquiet unfurled deeper in his mind.

How had Support been permitted to meet him? Before he had committed his own breach, the mission had already clearly violated Inviolate Rule Number Two. Surely Temporal Affairs had known who had been killed on 2019-May-10, Oslo--had tacked up their own index card that noted Support’s disappearance, no matter how independently he operated. Someone from Temporal Affairs had to have known that one of their own had gone missing. If they hadn’t--then _they’d_ failed both agents.

The number one priority now was to regroup with the Service. Someone was going to answer for the debacle in Oslo--he would damn well make sure of that. 

  


*

  


What he was looking for came in the form of a snack kiosk staffed by a young woman, who watched potential patrons come and go with barely more than a flick of her eyes. She wasn’t reading, or keeping herself busy, or rearranging her stand. Instead, she emitted the resigned sense of boredom that belonged to people who weren’t in charge of their own time. Another kiosk several hundred meters away had lower prices and a lengthy queue; yet she had done nothing to challenge her competitor, nor did she seem overly bothered by her current circumstances.

He loitered around the square for several minutes, pretending to snap photos on his phone and asking tourists to take pictures of him high-fiving the Statue of Achilles. He watched her serve one customer, and then fall right back into an abstracted reverie.

The perfect mark.

He slipped his watch off of his wrist, and bribed the stallhand to take a short walk around the park.

“Hey, I don’t think this thing is working right,” she groused as she shook the watch. “It’s running backwards.”

“It’s a custom piece,” he said honestly.

She shrugged and accepted the bribe. His eyes followed the watch as she strapped it to her wrist and admired it. It and its new owner disappeared into the throng of tourists who’d gathered near the Wellington Arch. He felt a pang of loss; he really loved that watch.

He popped open the register and exchanged his Euros for pound notes. His pulse thundered as he read the day’s single receipt. 

It was the 8th of May, 2017. _2017-May-08._

__

Two full years before his previous mission. 

__

He gripped the edge of the counter. _How_ was this possible? The Instructor had drilled him on this. It was the reason why agents couldn’t travel past their point of death. _Reversal was not time travel._

What did he know about bonafide time travel, anyway? What had happened to him when the world had faded out: a time skip, the resumption of normal time...anything worse?

He thought he remembered an explosion, a sudden sickening lurch as time and space decoupled. And maybe he’d seen for a moment a vision similar to a story one of the other agents had jokingly told around the Division water cooler: the sight of Oslo folding back in on itself in a six-dimensional puzzle. He couldn’t be sure. It had taken less than a heartbeat to fade into the white void, like a Polaroid photograph bleaching in reverse. 

Remembering was _not_ helping. He shelved his personal recollections for later. Right now, he had a clear directive. Agents separated from Recovery & Rescue during a field exercise or active mission were to find the nearest dead drop and wait for the Service to recover them.

The Service had drilled him on the years and locations of their dead drops. 2017 was the letter K: Krakow; Kiev; Kerlouan; Kensington. The dead drops were marked by a Sator Square, the intersecting TENET emblazoned with a cross. 

This was his first piece of luck: he was already in Kensington. His second piece of luck: photographs of the Kensington drop had been part of his induction. The instructor had used the square set into the brick wall on Kensington Gore as part of his training on how to identify their dead drops from background graffiti. So he knew, roughly, where he was, where he was going, and what order of events would bridge the two.

It was a rare convergence of luck that made the hair on the back of his neck prickle.

(Which came first--his appearance in Kensington, or the dead drop’s existence in Kensington?)

He slipped a five pound note under the till, and melted back into the crowd. He skimmed nearby faces for the cashier. She was long gone. He hated to see his watch go--but if time proved true, he’d be reunited with it again in due course.

__  
__

____

*

____

_  
_  
_   
_

Kensington Gore was only minutes away from the snack kiosk on foot.

For an agent hoping to lose any tails he might have picked up, Kensington Gore might as well have been halfway across the city. He ambled like a tourist around the footpaths, through the blooming mannerist gardens, and along the Serpentine riverbank--then dipped out to lunch in a cafe. Only when he stepped out of the press of foot traffic and onto the side streets did he allow himself time to piece together the memories of 2019 that resisted easy explanation.

Support had called him David. 

____

Not a mis-identification in the heat of the moment. No. Support had _known_ him. And he knew Support. _What did he know about Support?_ Support was the man from the Munitions locker incident. Could they have met at some point in Support’s past, and his future? Could _David_ have been an undercover identity? By the time he’d been recruited, the Service hadn’t bothered with cloak-and-dagger missions. Perhaps, at his own discretion, he had chosen to infiltrate the shadowy organization that dogged their attempts to avert disaster; or perhaps the Service’s touch grew lighter the further away from the Future Incident that they collectively ran.

____

He stopped at a souvenir shop and purchased a Polaroid camera keychain and a postcard of Kensington Gardens. When he arrived at the dead drop location, he leaned heavily against the wall, and scrawled a quick message on the back of the postcard.

____

_2017-May-08._

____

_Instructor:_

____

_Unintended consequences encountered. Send Recovery to &.  
Will repeat contact in two weeks._

_Protagonist_. 

_P.S: String model is wrong._  
_See enclosed for a better theory._  
_Time is a snapshot that fades in both directions._

He clipped the Polaroid camera keychain to the postcard, then dropped them both in the non-descript mail slot below the brick Sator Square. He side-eyed the stone _tenet_ cross that adorned the dead drop. He didn’t know what door this message might open, but he hoped it was one through which no one on this side of the time stream could watch him depart.


	3. The Sand Timer (Part 1)

The Ampersand Hotel was a boutique hotel that catered to the luxury class, the city-hopping tourists who revolved through London and the continent and back again on a fairly relaxed schedule. The wall-sized &s that swam through the decor of the lobby tried for fashion-forward, and ended up somewhere in the weeds of overdone pop art homage. The room rates were exorbitant. But the walls were thick, and the beds were comfortable enough, and the eating areas were sequestered in an underground restaurant converted from an air raid shelter with no convenient windows overlooking the tables. In short: it was the kind of hotel that spies wouldn’t be caught alive in.

It was ideal for a Recovery op. 

He signed the register and produced the Service credit card that he had taped in his boot for emergencies. Accounting was going to be overjoyed to see this monthly expense report. The front desk accepted it without any request for identification, and a little tightness eased in his chest as he scanned the lobby for points of interest and escape routes.

Fourteen days.

That was how long he would wait before he sent another postcard through the dead drop. That way Recovery would know roughly when and where to send an agent to extract him; otherwise he would be stuck waiting for an agent who could only arrive before he had.

“You’re all set, Mr. Washington,” the receptionist said, handing him back the card. “Room 415.”

He slipped on a charming smile, and looked up at the receptionist from under his lashes. He knew how men and women reacted to _that_.

“I have several sensitive business calls I need to take while I’m here. So if anyone asks for Mr. Washington...”

“...you’re not in,” the receptionist finished, breathing a little more heavily than they had been before.

“Perfect.”

The bright enthusiasm that he had summoned felt a little more hollow than it should have, but he kept his qualms about being stranded in London to himself. Later that evening, he hung the DO NOT DISTURB on the door handle to his new suite and settled in for a long two weeks.

  


*

  


His first challenge was to secure everything that _Mr. Washington_ would require for two weeks as an un-companied spy in London. An agent without a service had to operate without being marked by any of the organizations that circulated through the city--MI-5, MI-6, the CIA, the FSB--and whatever other surprises Recovery had resisted briefing him about. The intelligence community curried favor with each other through the barter system, and there was nothing quite so valuable as a lone, unprotected spy working for a service which preferred to pay its way out of trouble and had proven to have deep pockets.

(Accounting hadn’t kicked up a fuss over the mega-yacht he’d wrecked off the Maldives. Twenty million dollars at the bottom of the Indian Ocean without a single reprimand.)

It was safest, then, if he didn’t leave the hotel. _Mr. Washington_ kept the concierge desk on their toes. The first and easiest request was to procure several new suits to his specifications, with enough space under the blazers to fit a tactical vest once he acquired new gear. The Savile Row tailors had balked at these instructions-- _why not just order_ American _cut suits?_ \--but had complied, and he admired how well the new waistcoats fit him, even allowing for the secret knife flap at the small of his back. The modified oxygen tanks and masks were a more difficult request. He kept the description vague and simply instructed the concierge to retrieve a large package from an after-market seller he would work with in the future.

Other supplies presented a problem. Military spec gear couldn’t simply be ordered and fetched like groceries; if he wanted firearms, he would have to barter on his reputation. With a little convincing, the after-market seller put word out through the right channels that he was looking to make a small, no-hassle purchase. It was a start. What he really wanted was a meet with the Mentor. He didn’t expect a response so quickly, but he received a telex through Reception an hour later. **_Tonight. 10pm_**.

That night he entertained the Mentor in the wine bar, where the decor dripped with more copper than a steampunk convention. The fin-de-siecle embellishments were oppressive, but the wine bar was the only hotel location without security cameras, aside from the guest suites.

It sufficed.

(Though it would, in the future, lower the Mentor’s esteem of him.)

Over drinks, the Mentor regaled him with tales about the gentlemen’s club that had sat on the Ampersand’s lot 50 years prior. 

When he passed the word _Tenet_ across the table, the Mentor stared back at him impassively.

“I gather you have an interest in a certain line of business.”

 _Mr. Washington_ agreed mildly. He swept his gaze around the bar. No surprises lingered in the alcoves. He delivered his list to the Mentor. Standard equipment, nothing flashy: a firearm, a suppressor, some tactical vests, body armor, jump harnesses with extra rope, crowd control-based obfuscation for quick retreats. 

The Mentor swirled the cognac around in his snifter. “The answer is _no_.”

In 2017, the Mentor didn’t work with independent contractors; he was still a man of principle. It would be at least two years before the Mentor played broker to both the Service and the mercenaries that dogged his steps.

It was easy enough to thank the Mentor for his consideration: none of the other connections that _Mr. Washington_ had shaken loose had offered a face-to-face meet, and it made him nostalgic to see a familiar face, even if that familiarity was one-sided. He coasted on a feeling of warm camaraderie and wondered what the Instructor was doing in 2017--if she’d joined the Service yet--if the Sarcophagus had been converted to warehouse objects out of time yet.

“You don’t seem disappointed, Mr. Washington,” the Mentor observed keenly.

“You were a longshot,” he replied, voice warm. “And you didn’t hold the decor against me.”

The Mentor laughed, genuine and amused, and clapped Mr. Washington on the back.

“You’re a good lad. Maybe we can do business in the future, after you’ve sorted out your current difficulties.” 

The conversation then turned to tales of old London spycraft; the cat-and-mouse game the Mentor had played when he was a young man in a city that was learning to be young again after the Blitz. How different the city seemed now! The streets hunched in on each other, involuting on themselves in the face of a global crisis that required international collaboration, not isolation. Or maybe _Mr. Washington_ just thought that way, because he saw London through the eyes of a man without a home.

  


*

  


Ten days passed. It was pleasant to wake up in sunlight and watch the sun trace its more customary path across the sky. He gave himself half an hour each morning where he didn’t need to be anywhere in particular, nor accomplish any specific goal. He spent most of it sky-watching from the bed, a blanket half-kicked off and bunched around his feet. He had forgotten how _alive_ forward time felt, a restless buzzing under his skin that propelled him through his days. 

He couldn’t stop himself from thinking, though. He had completely struck out in his attempts to buy firearms. None of the major London players wanted to deal with an unknown; and he had no one to vouch for him in the military-spec community.

By the time he rolled out of bed, he was dialing down to the lobby with a new batch of requests. 

On his way down to the underground restaurant, the receptionist slipped him the passel of inquiries that Mr. Washington had accrued at the front desk from the night before. These inquiries had been from spies testing the water to see if _Mr. Washington_ was available for a face-to-face (and maybe a quick abduction-for-barter), but none of the receptionist’s descriptions matched agents that worked for Recovery.

“Not the one you’re looking for?” the reception asked again, for the ninth time. They’d seemed a little more empathetic each day, but today they were positively regretful; they’d been excited about a woman in a stylish sundress and oversized sunhat, neck sparkling with diamonds. She’d stood out even among the hotel’s luxury clientele as a potential big spender.

He shook his head. “No, I’m afraid not.”

“This is more traffic that I would have expected for someone in--”

“--Futures Analysis.”

The receptionist looked crestfallen. “Oh. I was so sure you were someone romantic. A globe-trotting novelist on sabbatical.” They shook off their visible disappointment. “So few financiers book rooms with us; we’re such a long distance from Canary Wharf. If you’d like, we could hire you a driver?”

He hummed noncommittally about the driver. A hotel car would be safer than going it on foot; but he hadn’t set foot outside of the Ampersand since he arrived for a second very good reason: if the Service was going to Recover him, he had to maximize the overlap between an agent’s arrival and his presence in the hotel.

His next question was inelegant, but he needed to lead the receptionist to a particular bit of information.

“Most of these visitors are thwarted bidders from my last deal. You can imagine how awkward it would be to run into them over lunch. If anyone is harboring a grudge...”

“Nothing like that!” the receptionist exclaimed, scandalized. “Everyone seemed perfectly civil when I mentioned you had checked out yesterday.”

He relaxed fractionally.

He exchanged flirtatious banter with the receptionist--in part to pass the time, and in part to keep himself in their good graces to keep the flow of information open. He knew none of the inquiries for Mr. Washington had been from Recovery for the simplest of reasons: the receptionist had treated each inquirant with the benefit of the doubt. On the forward side of the time stream, backwards travelers moved like shadows untethered from their source. No matter how much training an agent received in echoing movement in reverse, they always read as enemy--threat--unnatural. If someone from the Service had inquired for Mr. Washington, the receptionist would have been unsettled enough to mention it. 

With a laugh, he disengaged himself from conversation and sauntered down to the underground cafe. It was going to be another unremarkable day.

  


*

  


Brunch was lovely but dull. He sat unnoticed in an alcove that had been dressed up to resemble a window. White ceramic tile hid the cement wall of the former underground shelter. The other booths were filled up with late-rising clientele, whose bloodshot eyes and subdued chatter spoke to late nights on the town. No one observed him closely; and he watched no one in particular as he contemplated what to do with another day without a clear mission. He’d spent the past ten days assembling and reassembling timelines, trying combinations of events with and without their assumed precipitating causes, and it had yielded no additional insight into what had happened in Oslo. Without data from the missing years between now and 2019, he couldn’t push past this bottleneck. 

He ate quickly and popped back up to Reception to swipe a newspaper from the lobby. The headline ran **_Insidious Ransomware Attacks London!_** and the rest of the news seemed innocuous enough. No signs of the arson or industrial theft that he’d been tracking in 2019.

Thursday, 2017-May-18.

 _Thursdays_. For the last six months, Thursdays had meant target practice in the Sarcophagus with the Instructor. He missed the green training gloves more than he’d thought he would. The Instructor insisted that agents acclimatize themselves to handling firearms through fabric, and she’d picked the heaviest set of canvas gloves the Service could procure for her. The gloves stopped the guns from accidentally slipping into reverse time. Thin cotton medical gloves would have worked just as well as rubber crab-handling ones, but he suspected she got a good laugh out of how clumsy the heavy training set made new agents. Even a seasoned marksman fumbled a shot when he could barely feel the trigger through the material.

In his reverie, he wasn’t alert to the emptied-out lobby, and didn’t notice anyone pushing through the hotel’s revolving door just as he pressed the button for the elevator.

“David!” 

He froze, and then berated himself for slipping. David was a common enough name, but he was checked in under a different identity; no one would be hailing him by _that_ name here. So he didn’t turn around. He stepped on to the elevator when it opened and pushed the button for his floor, and was completely blindsided when Support muscled his way through the closing doors.

Artfully disheveled, in a dark burgundy check coat that shapelessly wrapped his torso and nonmatching tan slacks, Support seemed to take up the whole elevator. They stood more than an arm’s length apart, but Support leaned toward him, head canted down. Unreasonably, he felt pressed against the back wall even though they weren’t touching. 

“David, my god. It’s been _ages_ ,” Support said, his eyes glittering.

He cleared his throat. “It’s been, what, two months?” he ventured.

“Not even close,” Support corrected. He searched Support’s face for context clues and found only a growing smugness.

“Aha, of course, at the--at the--”

Support let him flounder for a half-minute longer, as his smile turned wolfish. “For a spy, you’re a terrible liar.”

Discretion, he decided, had not been a high priority for whichever division had inducted Support. Pointedly, he glanced up at the security camera dome. It had been placed in the right forward corner for full coverage of the occupants of the elevator, with no regard for the control panel. He angled himself into Support’s space to keep his voice between the two of them.

Quieter than the standard microphone sensitivity would pick up, he shot back: “HUMINT isn’t my specialty.”

Support glanced between him and the dome a few times, before he blinked himself back from a daydream. “Oh, right, cameras.” 

He waited for a follow-up to that statement, but instead Support twisted awkwardly--he had business to attend to, but didn’t want to turn completely away--and fiddled with the control panel. He inserted a key and opened the emergency override controls. The elevator jolted to a stop, and the lights flickered out in the cab. With a _clunk-hsss_ , the security camera powered down. The emergency backup switched on and bathed them in a strong red light. “We should be fine for half an hour, give or take. Thursdays are slow at the Ampersand.”

“You were watching me in the lobby?”

“I was watching you from a secondary location,” Support hedged. An evasion. “Retrieval or Recovery or some other R-named division contracted me to assess the likelihood you were a plant.”

“Why _you_?”

“There’s so much less risk in sending me.”

Another evasion.

“Explain it to me as though we’d never met,” he said. 

Support drifted closer to him. “If the Service gets caught extracting another agency’s asset, their license to operate in London is revoked. If _I_ get caught in this hotel, everyone assumes that a rich plonker got done up for hiring a prostitute or smashing up a hotel room.”

Their proximity stirred up the memory of the there-and-gone touch in Munitions. They were practically on top of each other. It was intoxicating.

He slowed his breathing as much as he could.

They hadn’t been this close in Oslo. And they hadn’t had time to do much more than focus on the mission. He realized that he’d draped himself over the railing of the elevator, his body splayed out. His body language said far more than he had meant to. He tugged on his waistcoat to straighten himself out, but only managed to draw their attention to how hard he was in his Savile Row slacks.

His resistance was crumbling. “You’re not with Temporal Affairs?” 

“I’m an ... independent contractor. But we _have_ met,” Support insisted, raking him with his gaze, stubborn and steadfast in his refusal to move off or bridge the gap between them. “It’s 2017. Whichever direction you’ve arrived from, we’ve met.”

Those words breached the comfortable fiction that they were strangers to each other. Support might be a stranger to him, but his mind was dominated by one idea: that their history could shift somehow to contain all of the events that hadn’t happened yet; that they were tumbling towards some purpose, hopelessly out of order. 

“I swear to Christ, David, if you don’t touch me _right now_ \--”

He seized Support’s forearms, and Support groaned in anticipation. The touch wasn’t erotic; it was how he’d manhandled Support in Oslo--and god, the searing jolt of desire as he remembered how they’d leaned into each other without thinking in the trashed office. How gingerly Support had wrapped up his hand, like it was something precious--

“What’s your name?” he demanded. 

“Support? My face looks like a _Support_ , doesn’t it?”

“You don’t remember your name,” he said flatly.

“No. Do you?”

And wasn’t that something that had been picking away at him for months. He could almost remember the time before he died--brief flashes of apartments, vacations, faces, emotions, but nothing else. “No,” he breathed.

“Kiss me,” Support demanded.

David obliged.

  


*

  


The elevator’s emergency mode had locked the cab between floors. They were alone, the cameras were deactivated, and no one would notice anything in the security booth for thirty minutes if Support’s count was correct--and David had no reason to assume it wasn’t. He crowded Support against the side of the cab and kissed him again.

Support’s mouth was warm and stiff, opening fitfully under David’s lips, and David didn’t press forward, keeping his kisses light. Chaste. No need to rush beyond what they were ready for.

\--He really was a terrible liar, even if it was only to himself. It frightened him how much he wanted this--

They broke apart. “You’re stiff,” Support breathed against the side of his face. 

“ _You’re_ stiff,” David retorted. “We can stop if you--”

“You’ll break my arms if you squeeze any tighter.”

 _Oh._ Support’s jacket was bunched tightly under his death grip.

He eased off the pressure, and rubbed his hands against Support’s arms to encourage blood to flow back into his limbs. Support shivered underneath a touch that wasn’t even against his skin. David pulled back, and brushed his hand across Support’s bare knuckles. A startled moan fell from Support’s lips.

“I lost you in Oslo,” David said in quiet wonder. “Yet here you are.”

“Here I am.” Support cleared his throat, and tried to assume a more casual air, but it wasn’t hard for David to feel the need lurking beneath the facade--need, and something darker, an intimacy they hadn’t arrived at yet. “I think you should fuck me hard, right here in the lift.”

\--Because if it was fucking, that was fine; there was no danger in _fucking_ , no flood waiting to overtop that dam--

The burgundy jacket had to go. David pulled it off Support’s shoulders, trapping his arms behind him. Support’s gaze sharpened as his chest rose and fell. 

“Suppose I hold you here,” and he shifted his grip, so one hand controlled the suit jacket bunched around Support’s elbows, and the other went to Support’s hip--“and I get us off just like this. Gentle. Slow.”

“I don’t deserve your gentleness,” Support whispered raggedly against his ear.

Growing bolder, David yanked on the jacket to bring Support’s gaze back down to him. Support swallowed back a moan. A thousand different scenarios flipped through his mind where Support had betrayed him, left him for dead, sold him out to mercenaries--and he discarded all of them. Cause and effect had no meaning to him right now; he was a grain of sand tumbling through a kaleidoscope of impossible futures. 

He dragged his hips against Support’s, and felt how hard he was--how hard they both were.

“Whatever you’ve done, it hasn’t happened yet.”

Support’s head fell back, eyes glassy. He kicked at Support’s oxfords, just a nudge to open his stance. Support sank back against the wall; his legs slid out, and now he was the one splayed against the side of the elevator, clinging to the railing to keep himself upright. David pushed a knee between Support’s legs and bumped it up against his cock.

Support’s whole body trembled in anticipation, and--

And then David started moving. Small thrusts. Controlled. His upper thigh brushed against Support’s cock, still trapped in his slacks. Support squeezed his eyes shut and wetness glistened on his lashes; David noticed how the emergency lights spilled across Support’s face and glowed on the beads of sweat that were forming at his temples, and wondered what it would take to part those lips--to draw out a gasp or a moan, and not lose it to whatever control Support was trying to exert over himself.

He withdrew his knee and pressed his whole body into Support. He felt a jolt of arousal when their cocks slid against each other. The layers of fabric between them had begun to soak through with sweat and precome. David could _feel_ the outline of him as his hips began to rock against Support. When the head of his cock grazed against Support’s zip pull, his eyes flew open.

“David,” Support gasped, a demand to go faster. _That voice_ sounded as good as David had thought it would.

“Kiss me like you mean it,” David demanded hotly.

Their mouths met urgently, and the world seemed to tilt on its side as Support came off the elevator wall; Support dipped low into David’s space, kissing down his neck until he reached the open throat of David’s shirt collar and nuzzled it aside with his face to kiss David’s collarbone. David grabbed wildly for the burgundy jacket and dragged it all of the way off Support’s arms.

“You might regret that.” Support smirked as his hands came free.

He cupped David’s face and caged him with an excruciatingly tender caress. Pinning him in place. Kissing a stripe back up his neck. Sucking at the skin on the hinge of his jaw. That one would leave a bruise, David thought, and then he couldn’t stand being upright any longer. He pulled Support on top of him as they careened to the floor.

They were both panting now as he thrust up against Support, faster and faster, in an inelegant rhythm, the friction of their bodies and their damp pants providing too much stimulation and yet not enough, not nearly enough--he couldn’t decide where he wanted to touch Support, so he just grabbed his hips and let the frantic pace carry him through the dull pressure that was building in his body. He needed more; he needed everything; he needed Support to kiss him just one more time. David arched up against Support and groaned as an orgasm snuck up on him.

David rocked his hips against Support, still keyed up and thrumming with desire. He ground against Support and felt the sensation starwipe across his brain, points of light bursting behind his eyelids. His cock was too sensitive--but he could ride out the sensory overload to bring Support off too. He just needed a moment to regroup.

The pressure on his cock lightened. Support was lifting his hips off of David’s, wise to David’s ploy, but god, he wondered how far he could push this feeling. He grabbed Support’s hips and crashed their bodies back together, vibrating like an over-tightened wire; one long stroke and Support came against him. 

Support watched him, eyes wide and lips parted as though he’d received a benediction. David muzzily rubbed at the tender spot on his own jaw. A bruise would take hold there tomorrow. A mark from Support. Tangible evidence that they had shared the same space and time, whatever happened next.

David came back to himself in fragments, coasting in on a gentle swell of emotion. But Support hovered over him uncertainly when their eyes met. He searched David’s face for something, and didn’t seem to find what he was looking for.

David laid his hands over Support’s and leaned their foreheads together. His heart leapt at their closeness.

That he had the opportunity to do this at all--

That maybe he could have something more than a random encounter in an elevator--

It had to begin with honesty.

“You said I might regret this. But I don’t know you well enough to regret anything,” David confessed. “We’ve only met twice.”

“How is that possible?”

“I’m from 2019,” he said at last.

“Oh, god.” Support looked poleaxed. “You really don’t know me?”

“You can fill me in on the details later,” David said breezily. A thought hit him, and because he meant every word, he couldn’t help adding: “I’m used to taking things as they come.”

“You--” Support’s face transformed into a picture of fury, and Support fell against him, laughing. _What a fucking awful time for puns,_ David thought he heard him mutter, but he couldn’t be sure; he just held Support while they both rode the wave of hysterical laughter, and looked forward to the time when he could fully appreciate the irony of their third actual meeting being a quick frot in a ritzy elevator.

  


*

  


Their remaining fifteen minutes of privacy passed quickly as David laid out an abbreviated version of their already short personal history. He elided the fact that he had witnessed Support’s death not once but twice in Oslo. If Support had any connection to the Service, even as an independent contractor, he must have known the three inviolate rules; David did everything in his power to talk around how he’d broken faith with two of them. He kept details to a minimum. Just the facts about who’d been where, and what he’d seen.

Support started out subdued, but grew agitated as David reached the part where he’d discovered Support tied to a chair. (He left out his intel about the secret project and the fall entirely.) As the story finished with David’s inexplicable appearance in 2017 London, Support stood up and paced the cab.

The intercom buzzed.

“The Ampersand security office,” Support said absent-mindedly as he slipped the emergency key out of his pocket to reverse the override.

David stilled Support’s hand and they locked eyes. “Let me try something different,” he whispered.

He hit the intercom button.

“Hi, yes, this is Mr. Washington, guest of Suite 415. We lost power...thirty minutes ago. I cannot stress this enough: I need to be back in my suite in 20 minutes to take a call.”

“Sir, we appreciate your patience, if you will just--” 

“25 minutes,” he repeated. “If I have to pry these doors open myself, I _will_ keep my appointment.”

A burst of activity crackled over the line, and another voice came on the line. “Fire Service has been contacted and they will be with you shortly--” They heard a brief shouted exchange before the security intercom clicked off.

Support side-eyed him. “What’s your aim here?”

David grinned. “ _Insurance._ ” 

He outlined his plan to Support, who scrutinized him like he was seeing who _this_ David was for the first time. David adjusted his collar reflexively; outside of the Instructor, he wasn’t used to being _observed_. A small part of him wondered what _else_ they could do for twenty-five minutes, but--

\--he wasn’t going to waste an opportunity like this one.

The plan was simple, and Support bought in once David had explained the purpose behind it. Laying low for ten days meant that he’d moved through the hotel as a civilian; no deviations, no suspicions. This adventure provided him the perfect cover to set up a rudimentary surveillance network. 

With a nod, Support disengaged the hatch lock from the control panel. David took a running step and bounded up the wall. He grabbed the edge of the wall panel that jutted an inch from the elevator cab, and hung there as he felt around the ceiling panels for the emergency hatch. The hatch was well-disguised by the drop ceiling--likely to keep guests from remembering _why they might need to use it_. Once he found it, he popped the hatch and hoisted himself up into the elevator shaft.

He palmed a few motion sensors that he kept in the secret flap of his waistcoat and placed one level with the elevator cab. He caught the edge of the next floor’s door, and pulled himself up. Another motion sensor between the next levels, and on from there until he had evenly spaced sensors up the entire length of the elevator core. He strapped the motion sensor’s controller to his wrist, and inspected it. It looked similar enough to a watch to go unremarked. Once he was done, he descended.

Support stood under the hatch and watched him as he sprang from wall to wall, moving down half a level at a time. From that angle, he probably couldn’t quite track what it was David was doing in the elevator shaft--but no doubt he could see the flash of movement. He shouted up: “For an action hero, you play ’inconvenienced financier’ tolerably well.”

David grimaced; though Support couldn’t see his face, he hoped this expression could be _felt_. “Is that a compliment?”

“Well, I guess it depends on how you feel about rich assholes with boats.” 

David’s retort was drowned out by the clang of an axe against the metal doors. Support wrapped his shapeless burgundy jacket tight around his body, melting back into the anonymity provided by his shabby chic. David lowered himself halfway back down through the hatch to muss himself up as best he could. Support watched him hawkishly--David could hear him swallow when David leaned over the elevator ceiling to pretend to be stuck.

The clangor swelled, and on the next swing, the Fire Service broke through the elevator doors. A Fire Service worker shouted down for confirmation that everyone in the cab was all right, and signaled to the other crewman in the affirmative at the sight of one very disheveled man who appeared to have climbed out through the emergency hatch under his own power. 

As they submitted to their rescue, David mouthed _hide the key_ and Support radiated innocence in reply.

By the time they had been extracted from the elevator, _Mr. Washington_ had missed his important phone call, and the hotel manager hovered and fretted and wheedled as the Fire Service covered Support and David with foil blankets and escorted them to a small employee lobby on the 6th floor. This lobby had no pretensions to luxury--no black and white murals, or cottage wicker chairs, or boho chic couches with a single splash of color. David sat down heavily on a thread-worn couch, face tight with reproach while the manager tried to ingratiate himself with assurances of increased security presence in the Ampersand.

Behind the manager, David surveyed the employee equipment. A line of monitors covered the hallways on Floor Six, and beside them sat a computer marked EMPLOYEE TERMINAL NO PUBLIC ACCESS. 

“...and to offer you and you guest our sincerest apologies, the Ampersand is pleased to extend to you both a free dinner, _gratis_.”

David’s eyes narrowed. Support slipped out of the manager’s sight line and drifted toward the monitor bank. He slid a thumb drive out of his pocket, stuck it into the Employee Terminal, and then casually leaned against the desk to block the view of the rogue drive.

“Comp me a second suite for my guest, and we’ll call it even.” 

“ _Even?_ ” The manager blanched at the suggestion.

David knew it was a huge ask, but he pressed his luck. Tugging at the foil blanket that was draped around his shoulders, David drew the manager’s attention to the absurdity of the situation: a financier who had had to submit to the full press of the Fire Service, just to climb out of one elevator whose circuit had blown. 

David cleared his throat. “For _my trouble_. I lost my firm’s second biggest account due to _your_ security oversight.”

The manager looked faint. “And how long do you expect your guest will be staying?”

“Fifteen days.” 

David could practically see the mental tabulation of how much extra business _Mr. Washington_ had already generated with his ten straight days of premium concierge fees and tips to the bellhops. Those extra charges must have decided things in his favor; the manager blurted out that he’d have to check with corporate before he could authorize any compensation requests, then pulled a cell phone off of his belt clip and charged out of the room to do battle with the home office. The lobby door clicked shut behind him.

“Are we really planning to stay for fifteen days?” Support asked as he casually slid his thumb drive out of the employee terminal and secreted it in an inner jacket pocket. 

“ _We?_ ” David repeated.

Support didn’t seem bothered about a sense of decorum as he craned his neck and sunk back on the desk just enough to send David a clear invitation; David’s pulse rate jumped up and answered _yes, god, now_. 

“Scratch what I said before. You _already are_ trouble.” David steadied his breathing. “ _We_ are waiting until _you_ have a room.”

Support perked up. “What’s wrong with your suite?”

David thought about the state of his housekeeping after ten days of working through the problem of _randomness_ and _unpredictability_ \--and how ready he was to have someone set foot inside a space that was his.

“Let’s just say it’s not fit for entertaining and leave it at that.”


	4. The Sand Timer (Part 2)

There was no formal declaration on behalf of the Ampersand hotel; the manager merely slunk back into the employee lobby after a long shouting match with corporate and wordlessly slipped David a new keycard to a suite on the sixth floor.

Support sloughed off his foil blanket and set off down the hallway with alacrity, while David collected the discarded foil wrap and crumpled it into a compact ball under his arm.

 _You never know what might come in handy in a pinch_. 

The hallway had emptied of onlookers. Fire Service had worked at the elevator door with axes and a hydraulic arm for half an hour--and all of the tourists had retreated down to Reception during the commotion of the rescue. David felt a little more at ease here than on the fourth floor, where the guests congregated in the hallways and swapped stories with the same conviviality as patrons cruising a summer bar. He lingered near an alcove with a fresh potted plant and decorative table and took in the view: hiding places, entrances and exits, and other building features that might become useful in a firefight. He’d been on low alert all week; but after their rescue, there were bound to be pictures of him circulating. No doubt the next time an agent came to inquire about _Mr. Washington’s_ availability, they wouldn’t bother stopping at Reception before they paid their call.

The suite door beeped open, and David hustled down to the hallway before it swung shut.

The sixth floor suite was slightly smaller than the one on the fourth floor: a small front room with a breakfast nook and kitchenette, and a bedroom and ensuite bathroom that adjoined via a door next to the exterior wall. The room was themed. All of the Ampersand’s suites were. Hotel management had given them the Geometry Suite. A delicate geometric pattern ran across the wallpaper and cascaded onto the accent pieces. On the whole, though, the suite was fairly similar to his own.

 _Except_.

Except for the fashion-forward polygonal couch that tied together the center of the front room. The couch looked sculptural. Its modular triangular pillows folded and merged into each other; in the warm afternoon sunlight, the white cushions and white trim washed the room of color, like an object fading into a blank void.

David sat down harder than he intended to.

(On one of the chairs in the breakfast nook, he discovered moments later.)

Support popped his head out of the bedroom.

The grin on his face faltered, and he looked at David seriously.

The wind punched out of him, it took a minute for David to say, _nothing, just caught unaware,_ and Support shot back with what a load of shit _that_ was. Support didn’t press any further, though, and busied himself arranging for the concierge to bring them up _just the essentials_ and a fresh change of clothes, and then waited David out in easy silence.

  


*

  


The porter deposited the last crate in the room, hauling it up off the luggage trolley and stacking it in the entryway with a grunt. Support cheerfully slipped a few notes into the young woman’s hands as she left. David had come back to himself in bits and pieces, and shuffled the boxes into the space around the couch, which seemed far less threatening when it was buried under SKB military standard shipping cases.

“You travel light,” Support said airily, “but I prefer to have options.”

David set one of the smaller cases, roughly the size of a briefcase, onto the breakfast nook table and opened it.

Inside was a Glock 19 with a magazine and a suppressor packed into foam. He ran his finger over the dimples in the foam, and felt the rows of ammunition stowed underneath.

He picked another case and opened it. Military-spec rappelling gear with an unusual harness that held extra rope strapped to the user’s back, for reverse-jumps. A third case yielded flash-bangs and several experimental noise-suppression grenades that were only in prototype in 2017. He eyed the case the porter had deposited in the entryway and took its measure. It was just the right size for tactical vests, body armor, and kevlar weave undershirts.

“You intercepted my equipment request.”

“Ah, yes...that was well-spotted.” Support dropped his eyes for a moment. 

He was _abashed_ , for god’s sake. 

“I’m impressed,” David said slowly, as he fitted pieces into place. “This list was only delivered verbally, once, in a corner of the hotel that wasn’t covered by security cameras. The Mentor doesn’t approve of digital footprints.”

“I don’t work for the Mentor, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Support offered, as he unpacked the tactical vests from the entryway crate and laid out the gear on the snack bar in the kitchenette. 

(On his list of worries about Support, that worry ranked _very_ low.)

“You say you’re an independent contractor, but these--” and he held up one of the noise suppression grenades--“tell me a different story. The Munitions department has deep pockets, and even we couldn’t secure more than one of these in 2019.”

“If we’re being precise, these grenades are prototypes that I swiped from my company’s R&D before I was ’retired’.”

“And your corporate role wasn’t something mundane like Lead Researcher, or Head of Accounting.”

“No, nothing like that.”

“You’re going to say something outrageous. Venture Capitalist, or Angel Investor.”

“Nothing so frivolous!” Support cleared off a Klein chair that had accumulated cases and stretched out. “I’m the son of a billionaire industry mogul.”

  


*

  


_I’m the son of a billionaire industry mogul_ bounced through David’s mind as they assembled the gear into jump bags. They had no clear target. They had received no instruction from the Service. They had three days left to Zero-Day. In theory, they were at liberty until then. 

Nevertheless, David could feel the tension winding to a crisis point. Support had texted his report to whichever division had contracted him. (He had showed David the text. “Not a plant.” David gave him points for being succinct.) He expected that they had no more than 24 hours before they would have to vacate the hotel and try to contact the Service via a more _direct_ approach.

They cleared the kitchenette, ordered room service, and swapped stories about innocuous topics. Parks. Airline travel. Midtown traffic. The best ways to lose a tail when international mercenaries were gunning for your secretive employers. When the conversation threatened to breach a dam of emotion reserve, or they caught themselves watching each other, one of them would rescue the conversation with a joke that set them sprinting down a wildly different and much more comfortable path. 

David marveled at how easy this evening with Support had been. He honestly couldn’t remember being _happy_ before. Oh, he’d savored his work all right, and had leapt into saving the world with both feet. But there had been little happiness in the six months of his life that he could recall. Successful missions brought satisfaction. A new deduction filled him with professional pride. But when had he ever felt this comfortable, when had the restless buzz under his skin ever quieted to a hum, so that _this moment_ felt like it was enough?

After they’d cleared their plates onto the room service trolley, he’d kicked his feet up in the Klein chair and napped while Support had bent over a laptop and conducted whatever business was his to oversee.

When he woke, it was dark. Night had fallen. Support had drawn both sets of curtains shut, but the moonlight still filtered into the room through the semi-opaque inner curtains and silhouetted him on the geometric couch. In the dimness, they glowed with an unearthly vigor.

Support was trapped in thought--he startled when David spoke.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you something.” David sat up in his chair. “You weren’t reversed, and you don’t work for the Service. So what made a man like you lead a life that would intersect with mine?” 

Support let out a bark of laughter--David had truly surprised him--and then returned to a contemplative mood. “Honestly? You did.” Support stopped himself. “Though I suppose I have my answer _why_. You knew a better version of me first.”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” David echoed Support’s smile, and felt a familiar affection kindle in him. If the elevator proved to be a one-off, he could live with that, maybe. Maybe friendship was enough. The easy way that they fit into each other’s lives tonight offered the faintest snapshot of what camaraderie they could share.

And maybe having that--and only that--would make him a coward--

Because he wanted _more_ \--

David yanked at his collar and popped the button at his throat. “What did you want me to ask, before?”

Support stilled.

“I’ve--been trying to figure that out for five years,” Support admitted carefully.

“If I asked you a question, would you say yes?” 

Support slumped back into the couch with the air of a man who had wrestled with his demons and had been defeated by the enormity of what he couldn’t control. “We’re basically strangers, you and I. But my answer will _always_ be yes.”

Nonsensical questions flitted through his mind. _Did past-you love future-me_ , David thought. _Will future-you love past-me._ Nothing that was relevant to _right now_.

“Do you want to fuck me?” David asked as his heart beat in his throat.

“More than you could possibly imagine,” Support breathed.

David popped the next button on his shirt. “Come do something about it,” he teased, “unless you didn’t plan for this?”

Support swallowed roughly. “Give me a minute. I don’t remember where they packed the lube.”

  


*

  


Support tore through the kitchenette and returned with condoms, lube, and a thin accent pillow. In the dark, David shimmied out of his slacks while Support unzipped his pants and rolled on a condom; Support was so engrossed, he didn’t see David’s fingers slip on the remaining buttons of his dress shirt. David bit back his frustration as he tore the shirt off, and stood in the advancing dark. He thought for a moment about leaving the motion controller on his wrist--it wouldn’t see _so_ out of place if he kept it on, would it?--but he worked it off his wrist and dropped it on top of the rest of his clothing.

Support’s shoulders rose and fell fitfully; he hadn’t undressed and he hadn’t lifted his head. David approached him, and laid his hands on his shoulders, running them down his arms slowly. Such a small, intimate gesture felt thrilling, being allowed to touch like this. David stood in the loose embrace, gently cupping Support’s forearms, until Support spoke. 

“I’m afraid of what you might call me,” Support said in a low voice, “if we do this. I watched you die, David. I did nothing to stop it.”

David recognized that feeling--it was the same one he’d felt in the elevator, when he’d failed to describe what had happened in Oslo. Moving through time in reverse, the enormity of what he had seen hadn’t hit him yet; Support had been living with his guilt for five years and it was eating him alive. 

“I’ve seen how it ends for _both_ of us,” David said slowly. “Do you think we’d be here--now--together if we’d done everything right?”

Light caught on unshed tears as Support’s eyes hardened. He was years ago, untouchably removed from the present. David recognized that abstraction, too; he’d felt it during his first months in the Service. The endless looping thought: _how do we fix the damage we’ve done?_ David grabbed the back of Support’s neck and shook him just enough to break him from his reverie.

“Stay with me here. Time is another country, and we’re both fugitives from it.” David squeezed his neck just hard enough to be felt through overpowering emotion. “The only important question right now is: do you want me?”

A half-hitch in Support’s breath told David that he actually _saw_ what was happening in front of him. David was naked and softly radiant in the moonlight. He was half-hard, and he was so, so alive. No secrets locked in their futures would change this moment. They each had a measure of the past and future, and it exhilarated him to think about what it had taken for them to meet here, now.

“Tell me whatever you’re thinking. Ask me whatever you want.” David held up a finger. “One rule. it can’t be about anything that happens outside of this room.”

“Lie down on the couch,” Support whispered. “I want to see you on it.”

David levered himself onto the couch. The triangular pillows contoured to his body in a way that made him feel like he was lying on a cresting ocean wave. He grabbed the metal rail around the edge of the couch and steadied himself into a useful position. The accent pillow was slid under him to lift his hips off the couch. A small, vulnerable voice in his head amplified the trepidation he felt.

\--The way Support hesitated when he saw David laid out on the couch--maybe David had misread the situation, and Support needed more closure before he felt comfortable enough to fuck him--

The hesitation didn’t last.

“You look incredible,” Support said raggedly. David heard rather than saw the lube bottle open and close. A minute later, Support was between David’s knees. Support was still fully dressed, but his cock rested against the open V of his zipper. David couldn’t remember if he’d ever been fucked like this before; it was scintillating to know that Support was so turned on that he hadn’t even stripped.

When David groaned for Support to double time it, Support’s cock jumped in the open fly of his pants

“The lube isn’t warm,” Support warned. 

Support’s finger slipped past the ring of David’s tight muscle and David bucked upward into Support’s steadying hand. Even though the lube was barely above room temperature, the intrusion burned. David forced himself to relax into the touch, and then it was good, and then it was _better_ than good. Support slid his finger in up to the knuckle and stroked and _fuck._ David felt his body convulse, and he clenched his knees around Support’s shoulders.

Support glanced up at his face, gauging him. David’s mouth had gone helplessly slack and refused to obey him. So he let the small, involuntary gasps working their way out of his throat find their voice to reassure Support that what he felt was pleasure and not pain.

The pressure quickly built under and around his pelvis, spreading up to the rest of his body. His chest ached from how ready he was to be carried away by another orgasm--but it had only been a couple of minutes, and they’d both be disappointed if he came before they’d gotten started.

David grabbed the base of his cock, which dripped with precome, and then _squeezed_ as he rode out the mini-spasm that shuddered through him.

“Already?” Support sounded more amused than nonplussed.

“Not yet,” David gasped as he gentled himself through the mini-crescendo. His cock was still hard, and when he gave it an experimental stroke, it unleashed a cascade of sensations just on the enjoyable side of too intense. “It’s been a while,” he admitted. 

Support groaned as his cock jumped. _That_ had definitely pressed a button. “Define ’a while’.”

“Six months to maybe my whole life.”

“I thought a country-hopping spy would be more worldly. Fast car, posh apartment, numerous lovers--” 

“You’re zero for three,” David shot back as he started to ride Support’s finger. It wasn’t a nudge to get him started; no, David could fuck himself on Support’s finger if Support preferred to watch. David could get off to Support’s slack look when he succumbed to overwhelming desire and didn’t seem to know what to _do_ with it, his brain short-circuited with pure wanting. Support would only have to say his name-- 

\--Support withdrew his finger, and David tried to chase after it.

Support pushed at David with his knees, encouraging him to angle his hips up on the pillow.

And yeah, god, they were going to do this.

Support crawled up David’s body, and planted his hands on either side of David’s rib cage. He lined up against David and pushed inside. Slowly. Gently. David felt him, the overwhelming pressure of Support’s cock inside him. He breathed through it, and took him, inch by inch. He was lighting up from the inside, smoldering embers waiting to catch fire. He rode the spasm of sensation out and waited for his mind to catch up to what his body was doing; by the time he encouraged Support to move again, they were both covered in a sheen of sweat.

There was no end to Support’s patience, as David danced on the edge of overstimulation and surrendered himself to waves of pleasure and pressure he could neither predict nor diminish.

The pace moved no faster than David could handle. When David clenched his hands deep into the couch, Support leaned down on one elbow so he could stroke the side of David’s face. The gesture was so tender, he felt something light and airy take root in him. 

David’s eyelids fluttered; soon, he felt himself relax around Support’s cock. He needed more but he hadn’t even had the talk about _what should I call you during sex?_ So he tried a different tack. 

“Please,” he gasped. “ _Please_.” 

Support shuddered--this apparently had been _the right thing_ to say--and yanked him up for a kiss. It was open-mouthed and fervent and felt like two sides of a conversation that they hadn’t had yet. 

Panting louder and louder, Support tried to gentle him but David hungered to burst into flame; he pushed them faster and faster--moaning wordlessly when he wanted to say _Support_ \--shouting _please_ when he wanted to say something far worse. Control frayed, Support pulled out and thrust back into him, and David felt the friction incandesce inside of him. They ran out of words for each other, raggedly sharing the same volume of air; David lifted his hips up to meet Support’s thrusts until the angle was perfect, and he felt the pressure build in the base of his cock. Support fucked him. Fingertips seared into his skin. He felt glutted on that sustaining fire as his vision began to white out around the edges.

“Don’t let go,” David pleaded. 

Support didn’t.


	5. The Sand Timer (Part 3)

London’s morning gray broke through the curtains of the suite and David blinked himself awake. Geometric wallpaper and empty stacks of mil-spec cases greeted him. On the floor next to the couch, Support had stacked pillows and rolled himself into a blanket. David let out an unsteady breath. He’d traveled through time in a more customary manner, for once: he’d fallen dead asleep after he came, and left Support to bundle him into a more comfortable position on the couch.

It wasn’t his finest moment, but he’d make it up to him after breakfast.

David wrapped the blanket around him and searched for a fresh change of clothing. As the mil-spec cases had arrived one by one, David had directed the concierge to fetch up some of his casual blazers. He’d tipped the bellhop extra for running the gauntlet that was currently set up in David’s suite. He found what he was looking for packed away into one of the kitchenette cabinets. 

“Why are you banging around in there, it's an _indecent hour_ for breakfast,” Support groused from the floor. 

“Someone thought the kitchen would be a good place for menswear,” David answered. “And I’ll give you two guesses about who might have thought a _kitchen cabinet_ was an appropriate place to store clothing.”

“It didn’t get wet, did it,” Support muttered. “Which is to say, of course it wouldn’t get wet...on dry land. Because we are not on a boat.”

David dropped the blanket and dressed in the kitchenette. “I was thinking breakfast at the hotel restaurant. It’s on a sublevel. No chance of being spotted from the street.” 

“It sounds romantic,” Support said carefully. “Are we ready for _romantic_?” 

“We could give it a shot.”

While Support disappeared into the bathroom to change, David called down to the concierge to cancel his standing requests after today. He and his guest would be checking out at noon. 

“I’m sorry, Mr. Washington, our security systems are _completely_ nonfunctional--” The concierge was abruptly cut off.

“Hello, am I speaking to Mr. Washington?” a new voice interjected. He didn’t recognize it as any of the rotating staff that the hotel employed.

David answered in the affirmative.

“Hi, this is Guest Accounts. If I could request a little discretion? Our systems have been compromised by a ransomware attack. We can’t access any Reservation Information at this time. If it wouldn’t inconvenience you, could you check out with us in person before noon today? We’ll punch up the receipts by hand.” 

David shifted the phone to his other ear and leaned over to check that the bathroom door was firmly shut. The fan was on and he could hear running water--Support was showering. He lowered his voice. “Did the ransomware attack begin around 2:30pm yesterday?”

“How did you know!”

“A lucky guess,” he said nonchalantly.

There were no good options, as he saw it. He could leave, right now. He could take the Glock and the tactical gear and disappear into the arteries of London in ten minutes. But it would only be a matter of time before his pursuers caught up to him again. Once burned, they might not be kind enough to warn him next time. 

He _should_ leave. Service protocol dictated that an agent in a rapidly worsening situation should disengage from action and observe from a distance. Finding an unmanned security lobby shouldn’t be difficult if all of the hotel’s systems were currently trapped by a ransomware trojan. David could simply wipe the system and its data and manually restart the security feeds. 

Water rattled through the pipes. He focused on the uneven patter of the shower through the wall and let the sound fill his mind.

David decided. “I’ll be down later today to close the account.” As he hung up the phone, he cleared his throat and said a little more loudly, so it could be heard in the bathroom: “A small addition to today’s itinerary. I’m going to have to settle something in person later today. Shouldn’t take more than twenty minutes.”

He pulled out the smallest case. He picked up the Glock 19 and tested its weight in his hand. He screwed the suppressor onto the Glock, and then settled it into a holster. By the time Support was out of the shower in his own idea of suitable breakfast attire, David had concealed the holster under a freshly-pressed sport coat.

  


*

  


They breakfasted together at the little underground restaurant. David maneuvered them into a table at the far corner of the dining floor, away from all entrances, exits, hallways, or staff thoroughfares. As they ate, the restaurant filled with the early-rising monuments-and-churches set, who were buzzing about trip itineraries and bus schedules. On any other day of this surreal intermission, David would have appreciated the bustle of the early morning crowd. The overlapping conversations--the shouted instructions from the waiters to the kitchen--the squealed delight of a table full of school-age girls--provided a perfect auditory cover. But he couldn’t stop himself from catching the unexpected twitch of a sport jacket out of the corner of his eye. His hand crept minutely towards his holster when a waiter dropped a tub of dirty silverware on the way back to the kitchen. His edginess did not go unnoticed; the conversation between him and Support was as light and affable as it had been yesterday, but a new tension undercut the easiness between them.

“I think it’s time we lay our cards on the table,” Support said slowly, as he deliberately laid his hands on the tabletop. “The hard ones, at least. The ones where we trust each other.”

David’s gaze snapped back to the table. This was it; the chokepoint they either passed or they didn’t. The decision to trust didn’t have to be complicated. He didn’t have to complicate it with irrelevant data. He didn’t have to complicate it with history. He didn’t have to complicate it with feeling. Trust was simple. And it became simpler each time he practiced it.

“The ransomware attacks,” David started. “Those are you. You’ve been trapping CCTV cameras all across the city to mask your movements.”

“And you’ve come down to breakfast armed,” Support replied. His finger traced a circle on his napkin. “I’ve been instructed to leave the hotel by noon today.”

“Unless I’m mistaken, your report fulfilled your contract with the Service.”

“You aren’t. My job was only to assess you. The pick-up would be handled by them. Word on the street is that they’re sending a single agent in a black sedan to extract you today.”

Support smoothed the napkin, and then tossed it across the table. David caught it and then, discreetly, opened it under the cover of the table.

The napkin held CCTV snaps of a man in a gray Burberry suit. David racked his memory and found him there: a distinguished older gentleman with horn-rimmed glasses and a little thinning at his temples. He’d dined at the restaurant on one or two non-consecutive days. He hadn’t been a threat. But here was the proof otherwise: the timestamps started the day after David had arrived, and continued up until the day Support had arrived. The man appeared in no less than fifteen CCTV snaps with him.

If the man had been an agent--and he certainly had that affable quality that David associated with career spooks--David could have been kidnapped, or extracted, at any time prior to Support’s arrival. They would only have had to debrief David themselves to know he wasn’t a plant.

“David, I don’t believe your former employer wants to extract you. How much do you trust your Service?”

“I trust them with the lives of everyone in this city,” David said slowly.

“Have they given you a reason to be so infuriatingly loyal?”

“They saved my life,” David admitted. “Or they gave me one.” 

“They’ve dropped a quarter of a million dollars on this op, David. You don’t pay that kind of money to _find_ a missing spy. Maybe I’m wrong about the specifics, but I’m sure of one thing: we’re in trouble.” 

David stared at him levelly. “ _We?_ ”

“We,” Support affirmed. “I could walk out of this hotel and disappear in under five minutes. But I hope you realize by now that I’m all in.”

 _He said it, just like that._ Support trusted him like it was second nature. The realization struck him harder than a gut-punch.

“I will switch to American sports metaphors if that will help convince you of my sincerity,” Support said searchingly. 

David leaned forward in his seat. He cleared his throat, and he said: “Kiss me, and then leave the table.”

Support dutifully leaned forward and caught him in a kiss that promised something more, later, if they lived to see it. David didn’t remember closing his eyes, but he found himself blinking them open when Support withdrew. David caught his hand as he stood up from the table, and it was only half for show.

“Your security countermeasure may have given us the edge,” he murmured. “Security cameras on all of the guest floors are locked out by your ransomware trojans. A hotel employee that I’d never met called me down to ’settle the account’ face-to-face. It’s an obvious ambush.”

“What’s the play?” Support murmured back. 

“I think it’s time to use that charming face of yours.”

Support understood immediately. Create a distraction in the foyer--the bigger the better--and leave no hotel staff unoccupied. David set their rendezvous for 15 minutes, at David’s suite. Room 415.

  


*

  


Through the revolving door in the lobby, David spotted a limo that seemed _wrong_. He kept a wall between the limo and himself. The sedan was fairly nondescript in every respect but the plates. German. He couldn’t make out the region code from this distance.

 _Berlin,_ he thought unwillingly. The limo could have come from the Service’s autopool in Berlin.

Support strolled across the reception foyer and out onto the street; on the way, he managed to drag every available hotel staffer from their posts to contain the escalating confrontation that Support was holding on his cellphone with his ’executive chief of staff’. The distraction was as grand and as engrossing as David could have hoped. The crisis ballooned until the floor manager was holding off the wrath of an irate billionaire with her willpower alone.

A pang of alarm crept into David when Support exited the building and the limo edged forward, within a hair’s-breadth of the optimal range to abduct someone from the street.

However--the driver seemed to think better of it when the press of hotel staffers intensified around Support like a protective halo. There were too many people milling around to make a scene. The limo pulled away from the hotel and into traffic as the reception staff shouted orders down the chain in a relay race to save the billionaire’s account.

David relaxed fractionally. One obstacle down. 

Exclamations of _the Bresson heir, here in the hotel!_ passed from vacationer to vacationer, who pulled up their cellphones to film the commotion. The name stopped David in his tracks. Slowly, he turned to the onlookers that were massing around him.

A pensioner elbowed her middle-aged daughter, who was filming the public freakout. “Don’t be gauche--” 

The woman and her younger paramour exchanged incredulous looks behind their camera phones. “Neil Bresson has never had an ounce of class in his _life_ \--”

The son of a billionaire industry mogul.

The sign on the third floor of the Oslo op. _Bresson_ , Ltd. 

The landscape of David’s actionable intelligence reconfigured like titanic ice drifts splitting under the pressure of new insights. It hadn’t been an accident that Support had been in Oslo. He hadn’t been some Service asset that had been snatched up from the street. He’d been the _target_ \--the nexus of an event that the Service had deemed unimportant, not to be changed. 

They’d sent David into that building alone. _Someone had known_.

Bristling with fury, David slipped through the onlookers. As Support’s reception-adjacent circus drew everyone’s attention away, he maneuvered around the front desk and sprinted down the hallway. The management suite’s doors had been thrown open as everyone emptied out to deal with the brewing crisis--except for the last one, Guest Accounts, where the door remained tightly shut. He ducked into the Guest Accounts office.

At first he thought the office was empty. When he turned back toward the door, he spotted the body that had been wedged partway under an immaculately maintained desk. Dropping a body was sloppy work. He couldn’t imagine any of London’s homegrown spy agencies would murder a citizen to capture a lone agent. Maybe the Russians, or the Americans?

He remembered this concierge; she’d covered afternoon shifts. Megan Addicott.

He drew his sidearm and waited for his quarry.

  


*

  


Fifteen minutes later, David jogged up the stairwell to the fourth floor, and swept the hallway as discreetly as he could with his suppressed Glock. The elevator dinged, and he whirled on it; but it was only Support who came barrelling down the corridor.

“Did you secure our exit?”

It had felt strange to lie in wait for a target to arrive, instead of his usual modus operandi--burst into a room and re-enact the chaos that inevitably ensued--but at last his quarry had appeared wearing Megan’s name badge. Fake Megan had made a beeline to a stashed MP5K when she had caught sight of David. The struggle had been brief; Fake Megan had met a violent end.

David pulled out his keycard from an inner jacket pocket and swiped it through the lock. “I got the plant in Guest Accounts. We’ll be leaving from the 6th floor suite in thirty minutes.” 

“As flattering as it is to finally see your suite, all of the necessary gear is up in my--” Support trailed off as he followed David into the suite, and froze in the entryway.

“Not everything. We need the two oxygen tanks in the kitchenette--the masks are over here in the closet--” David noticed that Support hadn’t advanced any further into the room. He took a second to reorient himself from Support’s perspective. “It’s a lot to take in,” he sympathized. 

Support slowly turned on his heels. ” _What kind of spy_ are _you?_ ”

“One that’s trying to avert World War III. My data is...a bit cluttered.”

“Oh, I think that part’s clear,” Support said as he took a tentative half-step into the front room, and brushed aside some errant red strings draping into the entryway like tenacious hanging vines. ” _Not fit for entertaining_.” Support snorted. “Very conspiracy-chic, David.”

David checked the motion controller on his wrist. No activity on the elevators. At least fifteen minutes before shift change.

“Would you like me to walk you through it?” he offered. 

“... _Yes_.”

  


*

  


David had begun to think of his office in Berlin as Index Cards and String, No. 1, and the suite in the Ampersand as Index Cards and Strings When Introduced to An Element of Chance, No. 2. Housekeeping had refused to enter David’s suite after day two, when they saw the singular state of disarray that David had orchestrated. If he’d been handy with a computer, he probably would have let an AI grind away at the data. But he had always been a tactile thinker, and the cards and string had become indispensable to how he thought. 

All of the furniture had been haphazardly stacked against the walls. The main floor had been cleared for what David had decided to call the _Sand Timer_ , a shatterproof sphere that churned numbered balls through a long, tapering funnel. Balls fell into one of many large plastic containers that had been labelled with probability likelihoods that David had assigned them. Likely, not likely, no better than random chance, one-in-a-million shot. In the middle of the room sat rows and rows of balls taped together in the sequences that they’d rolled out of the timer. A red string traced of each sequence to a set of index cards that were connected with their own paths of string--little constellations of probable time.

On the kitchenette cabinets that faced the room, several large pieces of paper had been tacked up, with notes scribbled in the margins of each one.

**Index Card & String Model. Polaroid Model. Sand Timer Model. Tape Player Model. ???**

David grabbed three free ping pong balls from one of the probability field pools. He held up all three balls. “I’m traveling through reverse time, and I want to stop Event C from coming to fruition. All I need to do is trace C to its cause, Event B, to _its_ cause, Event A. Then the Service intervenes at the nexus event, Event A, and destroys the whole chain. Crisis averted. C never happens, because B never happens. People hardly remember A. It’s not even a glimmer in someone’s eye.”

“I’m with you so far,” Support said, as he scrutinized a few of the constellation-index-card maps.

“Now consider my glorified sand timer. Shake it up, and the grains of sand pass through it in near-random order. Any event can jump out of the gate first. To prevent C from happening, you have to know the specific and absolute conditions for C, because C could happen at any time that conditions are right for it. It doesn’t depend on A or B--though the presence of A or B might change when C can happen.”

Support crossed his arms defensively. “That’s absolutely nuts.”

“It is a bit much, isn’t it.” David rubbed the back of his neck.

“The hypotheses are nuts,” Support clarified. “Building a giant air popper isn’t the craziest thing I’ve seen someone do with ten days of leisure and a fully comped hotel suite.”

David laughed despite himself, regretful that their time at the Ampersand was over. They had gear to collect and an escape to execute. David pursed his lips, and reached out to brush Support’s shoulder. Support’s face was closed and impassive: not at all like the breezily open and carefully sunny man he’d come to know in the past twenty-four hours. They were running out of time to effect their escape; but he couldn’t in good conscience let Support leave this room clouded with regret. David pulled Support over to the periphery, where he’d pinned four big cards to a makeshift mission board, an ironing table that he’d turned on its side.

**Meeting in the Munitions locker room. Time anomaly. Rescue in Oslo. Collapse of time. ******

********

“This is what I learned. Every time the random generator crunched the data, all of my missions seemed to be _missing_ something: some cause or motivating factor. Something that tied them all together. Something that the Service knew and wouldn’t tell me; or something that they’d missed themselves.”

********

Support met David’s gaze. 

********

“I think I know what the missing piece is now. It’s you, Neil Bresson. You’re the missing piece.”

********


	6. The Record Player

The man who called himself Support stood in front of David’s makeshift mission board, wreathed by index card constellations. Perhaps the prospect of their new mission was making David euphoric--the cards glittered around the crown of Support’s hair like stars emerging from the sea. Support approached the board, and ripped off the four cards to expose the mission ops board underneath. The board had been split between _Temporal Affairs_ and _Recovery & Rescue_; underneath the two divisions was every salient piece of _actionable intelligence_ that David had collected in his six months working for the Service.

**Inviolate Rule Number One. Inviolate Rule Number Two. Inviolate Rule Number Three.**

****

OSLO, PROJECT TORUS.

****

INSTRUCTOR’S MODEL OF TIME.

****

Support tapped his finger against **Instructor**. “Someone using the code name _Instructor_ pinged an independent broker to vet you. I’d never worked with them before, and the mission brief didn’t seem particularly on the up-and-up...” 

****

Support tore **Inviolate Rule Number Two** off of the board. _No communication between divisions_. He was fuming. 

****

“Someone used me to do an end run around your _inviolate rules_.”

****

“Is that really so bad?” David asked softly. 

****

“No,” Support demurred his knee-jerk reaction, then seemed to think better of it. “Well, _yes_. Please don’t get me wrong. I’m not sorry to be here. What I don’t appreciate is being sent into a situation blind.” Something else on the board caught his eye. “Aaa--is this--”

****

The rest of Support’s sentence was lost as the fire alarm in the suite screeched to life. David bounded across the room. Cracking open the door made the alarm redouble in volume as it blared back at them through the hallway.

****

An unfamiliar voice crackled over an emergency hallway intercom. “Please vacate your suites and proceed to the nearest fire exit. Stairwells may be used in emergencies. For your own safety, do not use the elevators.”

****

They grabbed the oxygen tanks and ran.

**  
**

****

*

****

**  
**

The aluminum tanks were light enough, but their bulk proved difficult to move through the narrow hallway. Evacuees surged around them like a river breaking around a prominence; as the hotel guests flowed towards the outer stairwells, David and Support fought their way upstream. David had a different destination in mind. He had studied the hotel plan when they had been left at ease in the sixth floor security lobby. A secret employee stairwell ran between the floors that had their own security offices. A master security suite behind Reception covered the first three floors; but floors four and six had small satellite security lobbies, and the stairwell that jogged between them had no roof or stair access--a relic of the hotel’s pre-Victorian past. Assuming no agents had penetrated that far into the building, that route offered the most secure passage to the sixth floor. It did mean, however, that they needed to approach the front elevators.

****

David’s motion controller pinged on his wrist. He almost missed gentle _doo-werp_ in the din of the evacuation.

****

Elevators 2 and 3 were in motion.

****

David pushed through the crowd, wielding an oxygen tank as a shield. Support followed in his wake. The time for subtlety had passed; when they reached the security lobby, David kicked in the door.

****

The fourth floor lobby was empty: chairs had been kicked over and papers littered the floor. The disarray provided no clues as to whether it had been caused by a scramble to evacuate or a forcible removal. Along the back wall, the security monitors blinked from camera to camera, showing nothing but black and white static. David crossed the empty security lobby and came up short next to the security stairwell door. He pressed his ear to the door. No movement on the other side.

****

Support located a master alarm switch near the light switch, and flipped it. Nothing happened. He jiggled the switch, then muttered something derisive under his breath about the hotel’s health and safety standards.

****

David’s motion controller pinged again. The motion in the elevators shafts had stopped. Whoever was in them had reached their destination.

****

“If we get separated, our regroup point is Kensington Gore. There’s a dead drop marked by a Sator Square. Can you recognize one by sight?”

****

“Not necessarily,” Support admitted. “But I’m a quick study.”

****

David described the square for him, the inscribed cross, the mail drop in the brick wall, and other surrounding graffiti markers. Support’s eyes moved under his eyelids as he seemed to build the description in his mind.

****

“Got it,” he said. “David.” He pressed closer to David and tipped his head down. “It’s not often I’m above ground these days. If I don’t make it, I want you to have a failsafe.” Support shuffled the oxygen tank to one side, and slipped a familiar thumb drive out of a secret pocket in his jacket.

****

Time seemed to change tracks as David reached out to take the thumb drive. The awareness that time was about to go dangerously off-course itched at the base of his skull. Copper and bile bubbled up into his throat. His mind flashed to the white geometric plane of unconstructed time. He felt Support’s hand slipping from his again as they fell. And then he _knew_. He didn’t know how he knew--nothing like this had ever happened before. Maybe zipping through the collapse of time had kicked loose a new sensory awareness--maybe it was something more--but the twisting wrongness bubbling up inside of him was accompanied by the certainty that from this side of the timestream, he could do nothing to change the tragedy that was about to unfold.

****

David turned to the lobby doorway. A man wearing a Fire Service uniform and a full breather mask careened into the room through the broken door. The uniform was close enough to pass muster to civilian eyes, but David had recently been in the presence of the real London Fire Service. The uniform was a shade off; the gear was tactical, not life-saving.

****

David set his oxygen canister on the ground, and fumbled for one of the masks he’d taken from his suite. He tightened it over his mouth and hit the tank regulator to the red zone. DANGER. SUFFOCATION WARNING. 

****

The fake firefighter’s gun came up.

****

Support stepped in front of David, tossing his own canister as far away from gunfire as possible. Support reached for something under his jacket, possibly a gun that he would customarily have kept holstered there--and then swore when he found himself unarmed.

****

The regulator pulled the oxygen from David’s lungs. Time was slowing. Stopping. The world began to black out around him as he saw the bullet exit the fake firefighter’s chamber and tear towards them. David struggled to stay conscious during the crossover. He didn’t want to look away. He couldn’t.

****

The bullet reached its destination. It had been a clean shot. It would have killed David. Support staggered backward and dropped instead. David watched him across the chasm of time. He couldn’t reach out to touch him. He had to wait. He had to wait until he crossed the threshold into reverse time to undo this catastrophe.

****

The fake firefighter and David and the office and the world outside of this murderous tableau--everything froze and then skipped, as the needle of time careened off an unexpected groove. David breathed in deeply. The clangor of the alarm in the distance lengthened and deepened into a monumental crash of cymbals. A tremor ran through his body. Time bore him down and rushed past him with all of the fury of a freight train. David choked out the last of his air.

****

In the space between heartbeats, he prayed. _Let this work. Let this not all have been for nothing._ He wasn’t sure that he’d be able to start breathing again. The only time he’d done this before, he’d been dead.

****

A growing rush as time swelled and picked up speed as it moved away from him, ripping a new groove through causality. The regulator sprang back to GREEN.

****

And then David took a breath.

**  
**

****

*

****

**  
**

The Service had taught David one truth that he clung to now: there was no irreversible forward movement of linear time. Anything that moved forward could be spun in a different direction; anything that had happened could _un_ happen. Hence: the Inviolate Rules. The Service had attempted to contain the chaos that one agent could wreak on the timeline by limiting his knowledge of the past (his future), his sources of intel, his motivation to change the world for his own benefit.

****

Maybe the Ampersand was a nexus location, or maybe it wasn’t; David could neither argue nor temporize data that didn’t exist. Alterations to the timeline here could perpetuate unstable ripples that set the future onto an unexpected new path.

****

David drew his suppressed Glock from his shoulder holster. 

****

His gloves were back in Support’s suite. Shooting wouldn’t result in the dance of catching bullets in his gun--or re-enacting a fight _just in time_. If he shot anyone, it would be done from his side of the timestream. He had no idea how permanent a bullet would be. He didn’t care.

****

Support twitched to life next to him. He stumbled back up to his feet, bracing himself for impact, as a bullet ripped itself out of his chest. David ducked left as Support dodged right, and it almost felt as though they were dancing.

****

Weeks of forward time hadn’t made him rusty. He squeezed off a round. The fake firefighter took the hit, lurched as his body collided with the force of time, and fell. His chest had caved in on itself. 

****

Support caught the oxygen tank that he’d thrown to the side of the room, but now the cause of that action lay dead. _This is a blind situation_. Prediction and causality between the two sides of the timestream decoupled as the floor began to lurch to the side. Time was collapsing into a paradox. David had killed a man before he could have died. He had made another alteration to a non-nexus location.

****

And he’d do it again, inviolate rules be damned.

****

His breathing stabilized.

****

Time started to warp. The lobby pinched at the edges and bulged outward in a dizzying fish-eye lens, lurching the contents of the room violently. The quake caught Support unaware. Before David could react, a wave of time smashed Support against the wall and he collapsed onto the floor.

****

David let the Glock drop and tore the oxygen mask off. He fitted it over Support’s face, taking care to seal it around his mouth and nose, before Support could unwind any further into the strange shoal on which time had foundered. He cradled Support’s head as he checked for a pulse. Thready and weakening. In David’s hands, Support’s face went slack as his breathing died away.

****

He counted out the seconds. If Support didn’t make it across, David would begin CPR in five, four, three, two--

****

\--Support came up thrashing against David’s arms. Support gasped again and again as he crushed David’s hand in a death grip.

****

David hung on. “Breathe through it.”

****

As Support’s lungs stopped fighting against the reversed locomotion of breath, the spasm passed. David soothed a hand against his cheek. Another second later, Support blinked his eyes back into focus. David let his hand fall to Support's shoulder and squeezed as firmly as he dared.

They had run out of time.

Even so, David couldn't help himself. It was, after all, customary. He said: “Welcome to the afterlife. We need to _move_.”

They surged to their feet together. They moved across the office floor as quickly as they dared. David stopped for a moment by the fake firefighter’s body. He _knew_ it was going to be there... he shoved the turnout coat back from the man’s wrist and saw what he had been dreading. One custom Service-issued watch, the seconds ticking backwards to zero.

****

“David!” Support hissed as he tried to pull David from the room.

****

But they couldn’t just leave the only tangible evidence that their assailant had belonged to the Service to be destroyed by whatever was going to happen next. David yanked the watch off the dead man’s wrist and slipped it onto his own.

****

They fled from the security lobby as the ground behind them peeled up into giant mobius strips. David spied a window in the elevator bay. It was far too late for finesse. Far too late to worry about surviving the fall. David grabbed Support tightly and launched them through the glass. The window frame splintered around them as they tumbled into the unknown.

****

Above them, the Ampersand folded over itself again, and again, and again, until the six-dimensional monolith of spacetime had filled with buildings intersecting at 90 degree angles. The ground came up at them suddenly. They hit a vertical section of street that hung in the sky; an impossibility of an impossibility. David and Support rolled to their feet together. They stood parallel to the horizon on the vertical street. David coiled his legs and kicked out away from it with all of the power he could muster; they barrelled through the air as the sky whited out around them. 

****

They struck something solid and bounced to a stop. Solid ground. Or at least what David _hoped_ was solid ground. Support had taken the brunt of the last fall, but he didn’t seem badly injured. They were a sight better off than if they’d plunged directly from the fourth floor onto a busy London street.

****

David and Support staggered upright and looked up to watch the end of monumental time. 

****

The dimension-breaking hotel collapsed into unconstructed time with a gentle _pop_. One moment it existed; the next, it didn’t. A white patch winked in and out of existence. One moment, a grassy lot stood in front of them; and the next, a completely identical building had sprung up in the original Ampersand’s place. Its white & black & blue trim sparkled in the daylight.

A whole city block inverting into nothingness went unremarked by the passersby on the street, who moved in the strange reversed locomotion of a person locked into the groove of forward time. Support gaped at them, and spun on his heels as London traffic rewound in front of him.

Support said in a rather dazed voice: “Well, I’ve seen too much.”

David surveyed the street as Support must be seeing it; the vivid, hallucinatory quality of reversed time was a lot to take in. Still, he needed to be vigilant. David waited for a sign that something had gone amiss. He looked around for the evacuees; for the fake firefighters; for the _commotion_ of a hotel that had warped through time and space. There was the usual genteel confusion that inevitably surrounded the tourist districts in London. People were stopping in groups in front of the Ampersand with large paperfold maps cupped in their hands. Bellhops leaned against their golden luggage trolleys, drinking coffee served from a small kiosk inside Reception. Others were entirely wrapped up in their own conversations, settling their business for the day in brisk tones. A doorman lounged about, smoking, against the large double doors of the New Ampersand. They had skipped through a chunk of time. A short chunk of time, he prayed.

“Are your missions always this successful?” Support wondered. 

David caught sight of an extra floor; this new hotel had seven storeys instead of six. He decided: _good enough for government work._

“Only the lucky ones,” David deadpanned.

Support steadied a pensioner who’d collided with him; the elderly woman looked right through him, confused by the sudden shift in time. She mumbled an apology, and then marched backwards from the encounter, away from her destination. “Can they _see_ us?”

“Not well. We’re a record playing at a different RPM. We’re going the wrong speed relative to normal time. We seem uncanny to them...” David trailed off. 

Everything around them seemed to be in the correct order. The sky, the trees, the birds, the intersections, the lights, the traffic streaming in reverse. Ahead and beyond them, David saw the limo idling in the street. It was the same limo with the German plates that he’d seen in front of the Ampersand from the lobby. David lacked the precise terminology to describe the _wrongness_ he felt when his eyes slid across it, but it touched a raw nerve in his body.

David nodded towards the limo. “Do you see it?” 

Support narrowed his eyes. They widened in surprise a moment later. “It’s _jittering_. Is that--”

“--Unusual, yeah. It seems to be caught in a spiral.” David considered their options. “The way I see it, we have a choice to make. We can leave right now while we have our lives, or--we can do what it is that I do.” 

Support’s grin turned wolfish. “As if there’s any choice more tempting than following you.”

“Are you armed?” he asked. Support shook his head, and David mentally inventoried their dwindling options.

**__**

His holster was empty; he had ditched the gun in the security lobby. God only knew where it had ended up. The knives at the small of his back had also run their course. As a last resort, he knocked his heel against the pavement to open its secret compartment. He pulled out a retractable stiletto and tossed it to Support.

**__**

“Follow on the count of twenty, and take the driver’s side.”

**__**

A curl of steam snaked around and disappeared against the side of the black sedan as David strolled up to the passenger door. David was electric with his own vulnerability, but he assured himself that nothing that happened to him couldn’t be undone. He opened the door and--when his eyes had adjusted to the dim interior--slid in. Inside the passenger compartment, David found the Instructor slumped against the white upholstery. She was bleeding out from a gut shot.

**__**

Bile rose in the back of his throat. He fought the urge to staunch the wound with his hand. He couldn’t immediately tell which direction she was moving; and he didn’t want to hasten her death if time was already unworking this monstrous wrong. The Instructor groaned, and her eyes blinked open.

**__**

“Who did this,” David demanded softly. 

**__**

“Retrieval. They sent me here as bait. They’ve laid a trap for you, Mr. Washington. I don’t know why, but they want to kill you for something you’ve done...or something you’ve yet to do...” The Instructor gritted her teeth. “If I had my way, I would tell those godforsaken assholes _nothing_.”

**__**

David licked his lips. “We _don’t_ tell Retrieval anything. That’s Inviolate Rule Number Two. No communication between divisions.”

**__**

The Instructor laughed. “If only we were so lucky, I’d drill that rule into every new agent.” She looked up at David steadily. A hazy smile played across her lips. “You would make a fine agent.”

**__**

He had no response to that. 

**__**

“I’m going to die. _Listen_ to me. Mr. Washington, don’t try to help me. It’ll be fine in a moment.”

**__**

David clenched his jaw and did as instructed. On the count of twenty, Support slid into the driver’s seat. He craned his neck over the partition and saw the body, and then the expression on David’s face, and blanched.

**__**

“Hospital?” Support queried.

**__**

“Somewhere safe,” David corrected. “You were right. We’ve been burned. And I think it was someone in the Service who burned us. We need to disappear.” 

**__**

Support floored it.

**__**

David didn’t bother to tell Support to blend into morning traffic and Support didn’t bother to disguise that they were fleeing the scene; the limo raced through London, dodging in and out of forward-flowing traffic in a lunatic waltz. David couldn’t guess which intersections Support wanted; turns came up on them suddenly, and David braced himself in the back of the limo. The Instructor had stopped breathing. He was pretty sure she was dead. He clasped his hands together and waited.

**__**

Support turned off Lambeth onto the tangled intersection where it met Clapham Road. He moved into the center and stopped the engine when the limo hit the safety lines. Instantly, he was dialing through to a service to schedule a pick-up for the car in ten minutes.

**__**

He disappeared from the driver’s side and reappeared on David’s. He opened the passenger door. David motioned for him to wait. Precious seconds passed. They needed to move out of the range of CCTV; they needed to get under cover; but David would give her whatever time they could spare. The Instructor had asked this favor of him--he wasn’t going to disappoint her a second time.

**__**

A jittering glitch washed over the car, smaller than the one that had overtaken the Ampersand but similar nonetheless. The Instructor drew in a deep, pained breath. The gutshot was gone. The color came back into her cheeks as she coughed up her first lungful of free air.

**__**

As the spasms subsided, the Instructor’s head tilted when she saw the watch on David’s wrist.

**__**

“I thought I only gave those to agents.” 

**__**

David held her gaze. “I took this one off a Retrieval agent that tried to murder us.”

**__**

The Instructor appraised him coolly.

**__**

“We knew each other, back in the time that I came from. We were friends. And I get the sense that you weren’t telling me something back in 2019,” David reckoned. “I wonder if you knew about all of this.”

**__**

“We’re running out of time,” Support put in anxiously. Traffic buzzed around them. But soon enough, an agent with a CCTV feed and the good sense that something was amiss here would spot them.

**__**

“To do what I do, I need some idea of the threat we face.” David paused. “I can’t save the world alone, and I’m tired of trying to. Come with us.”

**__**

“Yes. Good.” The Instructor closed her eyes. “This is _new_. I was not expecting _new_.”

**_  
_**

**__**

*

**__**

**  
_  
_   
**

A round drum mural marked the entrance to the London Deep Level Shelter. David and Support each took one of the Instructor’s arms and slung them over their shoulders, as they pushed through the double-airlock doors of the abandoned underground air raid shelter. The descent spiraled around a staircase that plunged 11 storeys into the heart of the city. At the last turn, instead of continuing on through to the public access shelter, Support stopped at a section of cement wall and pressed his thumb against a seemingly random patch of graffiti. 

**__**

A laser grid popped up, scanned his fingerprint, and then the cement _moved._ A hot gust of air flew past them as the door ground through old gears.

**__**

They crossed the threshold. The way wasn’t lit. When the cement door closed behind them, they were trapped in darkness.

**__**

Support took the lead. He reached out for a handhold, and jangled a guide rail. David and the Instructor both found it by touch, and they moved slowly, together, through a narrow passage.

**__**

David could feel when the ceiling opened up overhead. A cool breeze washed in to replace the hot, damp air of the secret passage. The acoustic properties of the floor changed, too. They were on some kind of metal gantry.

**__**

“One second,” Support murmured somewhere near David’s ear. Footsteps faded into the distance as Support headed further into the dark. David heard something swish open and closed to his left. Another door?

**__**

How well would someone have to know this place to be able to navigate it in the dark, David wondered.

**__**

He couldn’t stop himself--“How can we save the world from here?“--as blue and red floodlights clicked on along a metal walkway that spanned a subterranean river. The cavern was _immense_ : large enough to fit a three-tier construction bay where a lumbering tank-like vehicle sat on the lowest level in a state of disrepair. A two-lane ramp ran the length of the cavern and disappeared into what looked like a disused portion of the London Underground that hadn’t laid any track.

**__**

The Instructor tugged on David’s sleeve, and he turned to see glass doors slide open on a nerve center, a bank of monitors and desks that resembled a NASA control center, with news feeds playing silently across a row of small televisions set into the cave’s rock.

**__**

Support swiveled around in a tall, dark chair, his eyes shining brightly.

**__**

“You know, I have some ideas about that.”

**_  
_**

**__**

*

**__**

****__  


Actionable intelligence was what David needed, if he was going to stop World War III. His strings and supposition had only taken him so far. The stakes were too high for each of them to act as though they were the only one standing between survival and catastrophe. He could no longer ignore those questions that Recovery & Rescue had said were above his pay grade.

On one of the sublevels of the construction bay, a giant cantilevered table with swivel chairs had been welded into the ground. It made a perfect meeting room. Support and the Instructor sat at opposite ends of the table, and watched David as he laid out the insoluble problems of their current position:

_One, how would anyone know if the shape of the future had already begun to change?_

_Two, who was trying to precipitate the Future Incident?_

_And three, why had Retrieval burned them?_

David couldn’t count on the Service. None of them could. The pitch he gave them was short. _Do you want to stop global annihilation?_

They accepted on the spot.


	7. Epilogue: The Spinning Top

September 2012.

The salon gleamed under its track lighting, which had turned on automatically when the sun had sunk low enough to throw long shadows in the cabin. Gold-and-black luxury decor sparkled against the white marble dancing floor. The whole cabin was shot through with veins of iridescent labradorite; when the chairs and and tables had been detached and stowed, what remained was a breathtaking display of wealth and class.

What a truly colossal waste of money for a yacht, Neil Bresson thought. 

He drained his drink, and searched for a place to set his glass. When he failed to find one, he gingerly placed it on the floor and kicked it. The glass hit a wall and shattered. A spray of clear droplets and glass fragments rained on his white slacks. Huh. Well, what did he care? This yacht wasn’t his anymore. It had been his for less than a year, and now he’d traded it away to Mikhail Aven for the resources to support him through what promised to be a _prolonged_ bout of indolence.

As soon as they put in to port, he’d transfer the title to Mikhail and walk away with a cool one and a half billion dollars.

That suited him just fine. 

He’d woken up five months ago in what he’d assumed was his own bed. The memories of his old life had been completely swept away. The household staff called him _Neil Bresson_ , who, he’d learned, was the son of a recently-deceased billionaire mogul. So he’d played along. That must have been one of his strengths, playing along with others’ wishes. He’d pulled it off rather flawlessly. Oh, here and there a hiccup had occurred when he didn’t remember a name, or a milestone, or an ex-lover, but it had been fine; he had been fine. 

He just didn’t want to _do_ it anymore. He didn’t want to tour Neil Bresson’s holdings, he didn’t want to show Neil Bresson’s mansions, he didn’t want to attend Neil Bresson’s fundraisers. Everything about Neil Bresson’s life was tediously dedicated to retaining the wealth his father had cultivated from his manufacturing empire.

God, he could barely tolerate the guests; Mikhail, his wife, and their entourage were on the top deck toasting to the canny business deal wherein Mikhail had bought the yacht--and, incidentally, a controlling stake in Bresson Ltd.--for a song. The yacht’s attentive staff had stayed topside to cater to Mikhail’s needs; they were eager to stay on with the new owner after the title transfer.

Neil Bresson might have felt some type of way about being so resoundingly ignored, but the man who currently wore Neil Bresson’s suits only felt a little dour.

He sat down on the floor, hard, and contemplated the ceiling like he’d never seen it before. He probably hadn’t. When did the son of a billionaire industrialist ever find the time to look at something that didn’t turn a profit?

Okay, maybe he was a little drunk. And a little bitter.

His gaze fell on the port doorway to the salon just as someone arrived. A solar hue rose around the stranger, wreathing them in silver and gold as they stepped across the threshold. Something about their movement seemed...off. Like they were walking through a cabin tilted in heavy weather, even though the boat currently rested on a calm sea. It wasn’t that, exactly, but their movement seemed too labored, too artificial, too wrong.

The stranger didn’t approach him directly; he walked the perimeter of the cabin, charging the air with the threat of an oncoming storm. Neil sat up on his heels, all too eager.

 _Something_ was about to happen, and he could not fucking wait.

Neil cleared his throat. “Good evening! Are you with Mikhail?” he tried.

“I’m not with Mikhail,” the stranger said. He sounded like he was on the verge of laughing, as though Neil had said something incredibly amusing. “We haven’t met.”

“I’d say not. I’d remember someone as interesting as you,” Neil said, squinting against the light. For some reason, he couldn’t get a clear look at the stranger.

\--Maybe he was more than a little drunk, but he didn’t think that was it, either. He felt like he was looking at an after-image burned into his eyes, the bright lingering traces of someone who didn’t really exist.

“For some reason, sir, you are blurry,” Neil said, face scrunched to its limits. 

The stranger held out a gloved hand. Neil leapt to his feet and took it. He tried looking at the stranger again, and found the image no clearer. The stranger wasn’t with Mikhail; and he couldn’t be with the crew. Neil would have _remembered_ him. That narrowed the list of what he could be doing on the ship to a thrillingly small number of possibilities.

“It’s my duty to ask: what are your intentions vis-a-vis my boat?” Neil demanded. “Though I should inform you, it won’t be my boat much longer. If you’re thinking of kidnapping-for-ransom, might I suggest you start with good ol’ Mikhail on the top deck? Russian fellow, loud face, douchey voice. You can’t miss him.”

The stranger hadn’t let go of his hand. Neil felt a thumb ghost over the back of his knuckles. The hair on the back of his neck prickled, and he shivered.

The stranger’s voice tickled the shell of his ear. “I was thinking that maybe we could dance.”

“Dance?” Neil repeated incredulously.

“We’re alone. I have thirty minutes before anyone detects me. And this salon has a killer sound system.”

“You want to dance with _me_ ,” Neil summarized flatly. He had meant to say _yes_ , but each new sentence that fell out of his mouth bubbled from a place of sheer disbelief. “Do you know who I am?”

“I do,” the stranger said warmly. “You’re the rich asshole with a boat.”

Neil gaped at him.

“Fine,” he heard himself saying. “One dance.” 

The stranger let Neil’s hand drop and zipped over to the invisible wall panel and activated the hidden sound system console. A jukebox popped out of another wall. The stranger perused the jukebox menu and then picked several songs out of the queue. Neil knew how dangerous this situation was becoming, second by second, and he really should call for a steward. But he couldn’t help himself. It was the little things. Like how the stranger _knew_ where the systems on the yacht were concealed. Like how he _knew_ Neil enjoyed sensations on the back of his hand. 

Like how he was _baiting_ Neil, even with his song selection. A beat opened with the one-two-three of a cowbell. The stranger held out his hand, but Neil only knew two ways to dance with a partner: the slow, determined shuffle to a slow ballad; and frenetic grinding against a partner in a club.

He beckoned the stranger closer, and marveled at his approach. The stranger moved like a top spinning in reverse. It seemed inextricable how they came together. Their feet moved in synchrony; no step out of place, no shoe caught underfoot as they dodged and weaved and circled each other. Around and around they went, and finally he just grabbed for what he wanted. He caught the stranger’s hand and settled it on his waist. 

_\--a little less conversation, a little more action please--_

__

As the chorus kicked in, he leaned his chin against the stranger’s shoulder, and breathed him in. He smelled like cedarwood and gun oil. Wholly unfamiliar. Neil wondered if he had danced in this salon with this stranger before--before he knew restlessness, boredom and dread; he wondered if they had already known each other in a past that was locked away from him forever.

__

He decided in a moment that didn’t matter. The stranger was wholly wrong for Neil Bresson’s life; the present belonged to _him_ alone.

__

_\--A little less fight and a little more spark--_

__

He and the stranger were dancing here, alone, and the night was all theirs. Neil whirled the stranger around, lining them up back-to-front, and let his hips shimmy their way down the stranger’s back with just the hair of a ghost between dancing and--something else entirely. 

__

\-- _open up your heart and satisfy me--satisfy me--_

__

The stranger spun them back around face-to-face and dipped them in both directions, his hand marking a path down Neil’s body, and, god, why hadn’t Neil thought to ditch his jacket before they started? He could have had that hand with nothing but two layers of thin shirt and leather gloves between them, and it would have felt _wonderful_.

__

Better yet--

__

Neil paused as the song faded out and a new one faded in. 

__

\-- _I’ve got to have a shot--of what you got--_

__

He threw his jacket after the broken glass, and it crumpled on the floor. “Gloves off,” Neil demanded as he yanked at his black bow tie. 

__

The stranger hesitated. “You’re sure?” 

__

_\--It’s oh-so-sweet--you got to make it hot--_

Neil wanted those hands on him. 

The stranger removed his gloves and slipped them out of sight somewhere. It was so hard for Neil to settle his gaze anywhere, but he knew for certain the gloves had come off; the stranger stepped up to him and took Neil’s hands in the position for a waltz. All of a sudden it felt like the layers in an image had snapped into alignment. He saw the stranger clearly: his short-cropped beard that matched his short-cropped hair, his cheeks a warm brown that gleamed under the salon lights, his lips parted in amusement. Neil almost didn’t notice when the stranger stopped smiling because _good Christ, what if I kissed those lips?_ A bolt of frenetic energy shot straight down his spine.

The stranger seemed to jump back and forth as though he’d been poorly spliced into the room when one of his hands dropped away from Neil; but when he cupped his hands around the back of Neil’s head, Neil could _see_ him again. The worry etched deep lines in his face as he lowered Neil to a more horizontal position on the dance floor. Neil’s head was pounding. His lungs fought against the air, heaving up nothing but his breath.

“You’re gorgeous when you’re in focus,” Neil groaned up from the floor. “Stay like this, please. Grant a dying man his wish.” 

“You’ll be fine,” the stranger said. The rebuke was kind enough, because the stranger was _still_ here with him, hand against the back of his neck, rubbing circles into his skin. “You’re not used to the jump. It’ll suck when I let go, but I can’t keep you like this.”

The stranger craned over him, like he was thinking of kissing him, and Neil regretted the fuck out of it when the stranger decided not to. His hands withdrew, and with them so did Neil’s clarity. The stranger slunk back; Neil gasped as his lungs started working again, and he staggered to his feet and gulped down air greedily.

Neil pinched the bridge of his nose and pointedly didn’t look at the stranger; he wanted to remember his face. He had to commit it to memory, right now, before he could forget it. “Why did you dance with me, on tonight of all nights?” he muttered through his hand.

The stranger had disappeared, and it felt like his voice echoed through the salon. “Just your lucky day, I guess.”

A moment later, the stranger was at his back again, the gloves on. His hands came around Neil’s sides and held him in a loose clasp. A hug, almost.

“We can do this again and again, but we don’t have to cut the same path. You can be more than this,” the stranger exhorted. 

Neil could _not_ control how his heart leapt. “What do I call you? When I see you again,” he clarified.

“...Call me David.”

The stranger squeezed him briefly, and then his touch vanished. Neil stared unseeingly at the salon walls. He was afraid to turn around. If he turned around, the spell would break, and he’d return to what he was--a man irrevocably alone.

The music stopped. In the silence, he could hear himself breathing harshly.

In that moment, he felt certain about one thing. Neil Bresson wasn’t a coward... and neither, he decided, was he.

He found the strength to turn towards the jukebox. The salon was empty, as he’d expected it to be. But something rested on the jukebox’s cabinet--a metal top and a business card.

  


####  **&**

Kensington  
  
_Our path isn’t straightforward._  
_Find me in the future._

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to my betas [architeuthis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/architeuthis/pseuds/architeuthis) and [susiecarter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/susiecarter/pseuds/susiecarter), cheerleaders, and graygerbil for providing a choice quote that I stole. I sincerely hope you enjoyed reading this fic! I enjoyed spending time with these characters, and might be looking for an excuse to write a sequel. :D


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